The Spectrum of Desire
by Gypsy Love
Summary: Leonard thinks about Sheldon.
1. Chapter 1

In many ways Leonard felt that he was smarter than Sheldon. He would admit, had been forced to admit on more than one occasion that Sheldon's I.Q. was higher, and he secretly agreed with Sheldon that tests probably could not accurately measure it. He understood that Sheldon's mind could twist and make intuitive leaps based on a deep understanding of the essence of things that he was not capable of. Before he met Sheldon he had known no one smarter than he was. It felt almost good to have someone who could match and beat him at the intellectual feats he had taken for granted. Even if he had been allowed to skip grades he doubted that he could have entered college at 11 and graduated at 14.

But in many ways he was much smarter than Sheldon, because social intelligence was still intelligence. Sheldon couldn't understand sarcasm and much humor, he couldn't look at someone and know what they were feeling. Leonard knew that Sheldon was unable to do those things because he was unable to read the clues that facial expressions and tones of voice provided. It was as though his brilliance in academia had taken everything, and there was nothing left for the social aspect of existence. He had wondered more than once if Sheldon was autistic. It seemed to him that Sheldon had no true theory of mind, but that his superior intellect had allowed him to learn it, to approximate it as best he could.

He heard the key in the lock and watched as Sheldon entered the apartment, the strap of his bag slung over one shoulder and across his chest. Sheldon nodded almost formally at him, tossed his keys into the bowl next to the door, and removed his bag and set it down. Another reason Leonard thought he was autistic was his desperate need to have a routine. The same food on the same days of the week, sitting in the same spot in the apartment, wearing clothes that have been designated for certain days, this behavior struck him as more severe than OCD.

"Hello, Leonard," Sheldon said, his expression flat, his blue eyes rimmed by those long lashes. Leonard knew that autistic children were historically considered to be beautiful, and this may be due to their almost angelic lack of expression. Sheldon rarely smiled, although he did, revealing his slightly off center rows of teeth. He seldom varied his tone of voice.

"Hey, buddy," Leonard said, watching as he went to the kitchen and started opening cabinets. He thought that he had become a part of Sheldon's routine, driving him to work and the comic book store and dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.

He thought that he had never met anyone as innocent as Sheldon was, as untainted by people and their messy relationships and the slavery to tones of voice and facial expressions and the subtle, ever shifting moods of people. He envied it sometimes, envied his obliviousness. He damned his own social intelligence, because it seemed to only bring him pain. He knew very well what he had been missing, he longed for the touches that hadn't come his way.

Sheldon was making tea, and Leonard watched him do it, watched the methodical way he went about that task like all tasks. Things were in order, things were just so. He noticed, and it had taken him awhile to notice, that Sheldon was very good looking. This isn't readily apparent, and Leonard wasn't quite sure why. It probably had something to do with the stiff posture Sheldon had, the flat tone of voice, the quirks and the insistence on routine. This was all you could see at first. It probably had something to do with the severe short haircut, a haircut that Leonard recognized as very similar to the "regular boy's haircut" you got as a child. That was how Sheldon wore his hair, probably since earliest childhood, and he wouldn't vary it. But Sheldon was tall, and he was thin, his shoulders almost narrow, the smooth line of his back going down to the narrow waist. He was so long limbed, like an adolescent. But those eyes. His eyes were large and deep blue, and he would look down under those thick dark lashes, and it could almost melt his heart.

He'd wanted to get closer, to bridge the gap he felt lay between Sheldon and everyone. He'd wanted to spend nights explaining sarcasm and wondering how someone so effortlessly brilliant in theoretical physics couldn't understand the simplest interactions between human beings. He'd wanted to feel the muscles in Sheldon's back beneath his own small hands. He wanted to get lost in those eyes, deep blue like the sky just before dark, like the water in a lake carved out by a glacier.


	2. Chapter 2

Leonard sat on the couch and watched Sheldon move from the kitchen to the computer, watched as he sipped his tea and the light of the computer lit up his face. He could stare at Sheldon now, seeing his profile, and he would never notice. Even among the genius level people he was usually surrounded with, none had the ability to concentrate that Sheldon had, and none had the ability to shut people out like Sheldon could. Leonard felt shut out.

He flipped through the channels, not seeing or hearing any of it, but he could hear Sheldon breathe across the room. He could see the slight rise and fall of his chest, the way he drummed his fingers lightly on the table next to the keyboard. Leonard sighed, shifted his position, and he knew these cues and hints that something was up with him would make anyone else notice, and maybe even ask what was going on, what was up. Not Sheldon. He was being tuned out.

He gazed at him, thought about what might happen if he tried to kiss him. What would Sheldon do in reality? In the fantasy he would yield to him, open his mouth slightly and tilt his head, and he would close his eyes. In reality he thought he'd never get that far. Sheldon would tense up and pull away.

"Sheldon?" he said, feeling ready to flee.

"Yes?" Sheldon said, not looking over from what he was doing. He might be working on some equations and theories, he might be close to some kind of breakthrough. Leonard always felt that he ran the risk of interrupting him at some critical point.

"I'm gonna go see what Penny's up to," he said, wanting Sheldon to turn to him, to give him his full attention for once. Sheldon barely nodded, indicating that he had heard, and that would be his only response. Leonard snapped the T.V. off and fled.

In Penny's apartment he was almost comforted by the disarray, such a sharp contrast to his own pin neat apartment. Sheldon cleaned obsessively. All Leonard would do was put things away, but Sheldon organized everything from the spoons in the drawers to every alphabetized DVD and book on every shelf.

"Penny, I'm miserable," he said, but there was no need to tell Penny this. She sensed something was wrong with him the minute he stepped through the door.

"Why, sweetie?" she said, sipping some wine. He looked at the funny way it absorbed and reflected the light.

"I…I can't explain it, it's just…someone, something,"

Penny knew that there sometimes just wasn't any way to explain it, and she didn't push him. She only offered him some of her wine. He watched it splash in the glass and then he took a sip, and then another.

"This is good," he said, and she nodded, sipping her own wine.

"Sometimes you need to loosen up," she said, smiling her crooked smile.

After three glasses of wine he felt loosened up, he felt warm and almost like he could be happy. He could be happy if he could find a way through the walls that Sheldon put up against the world. He stumbled back to his apartment and found the living room dark. It was late. Sheldon was in bed. He crept down the hall and stood outside his closed bedroom door.

He pushed it open, hearing the minute squeak of the hinges, and saw Sheldon laying in the exact center of the bed ramrod straight but asleep, his breathing slow and easy. Leonard felt the residual warmth from the wine still coursing through his veins and flushing his cheeks. He took the steps necessary to stand next to Sheldon's bed, gazed down at him. He didn't wake, and Leonard was afraid to wake him.


	3. Chapter 3

If he made too much noise Sheldon would wake, he was a light sleeper. Leonard stared down at him, seeing his eyes move beneath his closed lids, seeing the pale and flawless skin in the dim light from the window and the hallway. His hands were resting lightly on his chest, and Leonard noticed the long fingers and trimmed nails. He bit his lip, feeling the wine in his head trying to make him nauseas. He would leave in a moment, but the low sound of Sheldon's breathing was lulling him into inactivity.

Back in the living room, the T.V. on low, Leonard thought about things. Sheldon didn't know, didn't have a clue that all the things he did for him were out of proportion to being roommates and even friends. He drove him to work and to the comic book store and to dinner and to every doctor appointment he made. He tried as hard as he could to get every take out meal to the specifics that Sheldon demanded, from the special hot mustard and the low sodium soy sauce, he twisted under the weight of every request.

He was dozing on the couch but felt too tired to drag himself to bed. Would he ever have the courage to try and change his relationship with Sheldon? He tried to peer inside of himself but he just didn't know. Part of what he liked about Sheldon, part of what he loved, that obliviousness to the subtle interactions between people, that was making it harder. He wouldn't notice a longing look, he wouldn't be able to interpret a touch that went on for a moment too long. If you were talking about things outside of his narrow range of interests he took things very literally. A clever play on words would be lost on him. If Sheldon was autistic then he probably didn't need to have a relationship in quite the same way Leonard did. Leonard understood quite a bit about autism, his mother had studied it for a few of his formative years, and he remembered being fascinated by these beautiful, strange children who ignored him, who focused on a train set or a set of encyclopedias or who stared at dust motes. He remembered the savants, too, the drawings that were so perfect in a way he couldn't even understand, the complex symphonies that they could play back having just heard it once, the mathematical formulations that they could do in their head. Sheldon was like that.

Leonard stood up, felt a moment of dizziness trying to turn itself into nausea and he fought it, and envied how Sheldon never drank and never had to deal with feeling sick and guilty. He couldn't do it. He liked how alcohol would wear away his worry for just a bit, he liked the warm feeling and the pseudo happiness that would come from a few glasses of wine or a shot or two of tequila.

His hangover in the morning wasn't the worst he'd had, but the slight headache gnawed at the edges of his brain anyway. He thought maybe some coffee and juice would help it, and he tried to remember what breakfast food was scheduled for Saturday. He laid in bed a moment longer, shutting his eyes against the bright sun that flooded though the slats in his blinds. Then he heard the soft knocking at his door and his name whispered against the wood.

"Leonard," More knocks. "Leonard," More knocks, "Leonard," and he felt his heart trying to do a funny flip flop in his chest at the sound of Sheldon's voice.

"Yeah! Come in!" he called, running a hand over his beard stubble and groping for his glasses on his bedside table. Sheldon stood in his doorway, his robe pulled tight over his pajamas, the white T-shirt visible beneath. He dressed like a child for bed, and that wasn't a good sign, either. He was like a child in many ways, how could he get anywhere with him?

"What's up?" he said to Sheldon, watching the way he looked down. He knew that looking at people, always engaging in straight on eye contact was too much for some autistic people. Sheldon looked down like that a lot. He could see the way the light played on the blue of his eyes, and how it matched his pajamas.

"You're usually up by now," Sheldon said, looking up at him briefly and looking down again. It was true. He would get up when Sheldon would and have breakfast and watch Doctor Who. But he was hung over and that was when he would usually oversleep, trying to sleep away his headache and dehydration.

"Yeah, I drank too much with Penny," he said, sitting up, and Sheldon was shaking his head at him. He wondered what it was he disapproved of exactly. His drinking, or drinking too much, or hanging out with Penny? Probably he disapproved of him oversleeping and missing Doctor Who.


	4. Chapter 4

Sheldon made breakfast for both of them, but Leonard wasn't sure if he could eat it. His hangover was still pounding behind his eyes, and he pushed the plate of food away. Sheldon looked at the food and then at him.

"Not hungry?" he said, not waiting for his answer before bringing the food back to the kitchen and scraping it into the garbage disposal. He was risking Sheldon's ire by not eating, wasting food, being hung over, missing the beginning of the show. But he sometimes liked to provoke some emotion in Sheldon.

"Just thirsty," he said, closing his eyes and feeling the room begin to sway slightly. How much had he drank last night? He almost felt like he was still drunk. He heard the refrigerator door open and heard Sheldon pouring some liquid into a glass, and he followed the progress of his footsteps from the kitchen to directly in front of him. He opened his eyes and saw Sheldon standing before him, a full glass of orange juice in his outstretched hand. He took it from him and had a small sip.

"Thank you," he said, and Sheldon nodded, not smiling, barely looking at him. He sat down in his accustomed spot and turned his attention to what was left of the show, eating his breakfast and ignoring him. When the commercial came on he turned to him.

"You are thirsty because the dehydration from your alcohol consumption has left your body without enough fluid to run the Krebs cycle," Sheldon said, and Leonard rolled his eyes, the explanation somehow making the pain of his headache worse.

"Aside from learning about this in the first year of college biology it was also mentioned in the movie _A Beautiful Mind," _he said, and Leonard was thinking that he didn't remember it from high school biology, and he hadn't taken biology in college. His focus was on physics and those were the classes he had always taken. He'd seen the movie Sheldon was talking about, of course, because he knew about the mathematical theories that had been applied to economics years before the movie had come out, but that movie had scared him, seeing the link between genius and madness.

He thought that Sheldon did have a beautiful mind, similar to that movie, but he wasn't mentally ill. He was certain that Sheldon would have the Nobel Prize one day, and he also knew that he himself probably wouldn't achieve that. His genius wasn't to that scope. A dull jealousy sometimes flared in him over that, but at the moment he was too hung over to care. No Nobel Prize, so what? He wouldn't have that as he wouldn't have so many things. He thought he had accepted the limitations in what he could achieve years ago, but living with Sheldon had stirred everything up again. Being so close day after day to such an intense mind had made him strive harder in his own work.

Sheldon was nearly finished his breakfast, and Leonard couldn't help but stare at him while his attention was on the T.V. and his food. His eyes, that unrelenting shade of blue, the sleepy look he had that belied the quick mind behind them. His long and slender fingers holding the fork, the careful way he took each bite. Leonard blinked behind his glasses and inhaled the aroma of Sheldon's soap and his lavender detergent and the cinnamon in the oatmeal. He licked his lips, wanting to taste the cinnamon from the oatmeal on Sheldon's lips, and he knew that if Sheldon glanced at him and saw the nearly overt sexual gesture he would never interpret it correctly.

He closed his eyes again after sipping his orange juice and listened as Sheldon crossed the room to wash the dishes and put them away, and he knew what he would do next, and after that. He knew his routines as well, better than his own. He would wash the dishes and put them away, and shower and dress in the green lantern T-shirt and beige pants, and then he would sort laundry and at 8:15 tonight he would go to the laundry room. He knew, and if he couldn't make any kind of move on Sheldon at least he could find comfort in his routine.

There would be no Nobel Prize and no relationship with Sheldon beyond what they had now. Leonard tried to resign himself to that. He heard the shower running and he imagined the warm water running over Sheldon's pale and perfect skin. He stood, imagining that the headache was lessoning a bit, and he thought he'd go back to sleep for a few hours while Sheldon's routine went along without him and with no need of him.


	5. Chapter 5

The shower was still running, and Leonard felt that his headache was going away. It was funny how a hangover always made him feel guilty, as if he had failed by misjudging his alcohol capacity. Maybe he'd take a shower instead of a nap and find something productive to do, and maybe he wouldn't drink tonight and maybe he could get Sheldon out of his head.

The shower stopped, and he imagined Sheldon drying off with the towel, rubbing his short hair dry, shaving in his meticulous manner. He rubbed his hand over his own thick dark beard stubble and doubted he would shave today, or even shower. He could feel his frustrated desire leading him into inactivity.

He flipped idly through the channels and heard the bathroom door open, and he imagined the steam billowing out into the hall, and he heard Sheldon make his way from the bathroom to his bedroom. There was something about Sheldon that occurred to him. He never lied. He was somehow incapable of it, and if you asked him something he would tell you the painful truth. He could just ask him. He could ask him if he ever felt the stirrings of feelings for him that Leonard felt. He could ask him if he wanted to take things to another level, if he wanted to try and get closer. He could ask him if he was attracted to men at all, and if he was attracted to him. He could ask him and he would hear the truth. But it scared him because what if the truth was no? What if he was attracted to men but not him, or women, or no one?

Leonard shifted his weight on the couch and decided that he had to know. It had been months of this, months of being intoxicated by Sheldon's scent of soap and light cologne, months of watching the way the light played off of his blue eyes, months of analyzing the way that his hands would twitch in certain situations and when he would look down. He had been entangled in Sheldon's nearly incomprehensible speech patterns and surprised by the conclusions of his incredible mind. He wanted him, and he had to know if it would ever be a possibility.

He stood up, stretched, heard the vertebrae in his back crack. Sheldon. He felt his heart start to beat hard in his chest, felt his palms start to perspire. His legs were shaky, watery, threatening to give way and spill him to the floor as he made his way to Sheldon's bedroom. He knocked on the door until he heard Sheldon giving him permission to come in.

He opened the door slowly, feeling that all the oxygen had left the hallway and probably the entire apartment. Sheldon was dressed just as he had predicted, and his hair was damp and appeared a shade or two darker than when it was dry. He was sorting his clothes for laundry night, and when Leonard opened the door Sheldon had straightened up and looked directly at him, and he was caught in that blue stare. In that moment, seeing him standing in the center of the room and looking straight at him, there were less symptoms of autism. Sometimes his belief that Sheldon was autistic got in his way, reminded him of his mother's test subjects when he was a child, reminded him that he couldn't relate or connect with them. When Sheldon insisted on routine and had what was essentially a tantrum if things didn't go his way, Leonard felt there was no hope of a romantic relationship. But right now, his hair damp and tangled, his direct and questioning stare pinning him to the doorway, his slender physique, Leonard could imagine all kinds of relationships and wanted them.

"Uh, Sheldon?" he said, inching his way into the room, and Sheldon had turned back to his clothes.

"Yes?" he said, sorting, folding, everything in order and everything in place. Leonard blinked, gazing at the curve of Sheldon's back. There was no way he could ask him if he would have a romantic relationship with him. How could he ask him that? But he could ask him questions around this issue, questions about previous relationships to see where he stood, and Sheldon's lack of social intelligence would work in his favor because he would never guess the implications of his questions.

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?" Leonard said, his mouth dry as this question fell to the floor between them. Someone besides Sheldon would wonder at this question, might ask where did this come from and why do you want to know and they would have a quizzical look on their face. Not Sheldon. He continued to sort his clothes and all but ignore Leonard, but he answered.

"No, I have not,"

"Why not?" Leonard said, leaning on the wall for support, his breathing shallow as he treaded these uncharted waters. Sheldon did not notice him at all, but stood up and appeared to think over this question.

"I suppose I have had no need of one. My focus and interest is in science, physics, unraveling the puzzles that face mankind. This takes up a lot of time and energy, and so there has been none left for romantic relationships. Further more, I'm uncomfortable around most people and really only tolerate those who are in my daily interactions. Maybe I need other people less than average people do, because I am above the base physiological needs that most people have,"

Leonard stared at him, feeling his longing intensify as he realized he might never have him. He felt very average, feeling his heart beat in his ears, feeling his eyes dilate as he stared at his roommate. His roommate continued to calmly fold and sort his clothes, not straying from the comfort of his routine.


	6. Chapter 6

Leonard was in bed, drifting toward sleep, wondering when he'd decided to want more with Sheldon. Did he consciously decide that? It didn't seem like a good decision at all, it didn't seem like something that could possibly happen in this lifetime or any other. He flipped his pillow over to feel the cool side of it against his cheek. Maybe it was just a result of proximity. They lived together, after all. He saw him in the morning, every morning, his hair mussed up and his eyes sleep puffy. He saw him at work, dressed in his super hero T-shirts and pants, never jeans. He saw him at night, playing video games and eating Thai food and at the comic book store, his long fingers rifling through the plastic protected comic books. He'd memorized the lines of his body, the way certain veins pulsed softly in his neck. He'd memorized the shades of blue in his eyes.

He was nearly asleep, he was just on the edge of it when he heard the knocks at his bedroom door and his name said softly but with an underlying note of fear.

"Leonard?" He sat up as the knocks played out and his name was said in that soft, fearful voice.

"Leonard?" He put his glasses on after groping for them on his bedside table, feeling his heart start to beat faster because he'd be seeing Sheldon and dealing with whatever had upset him, and something had, he heard it in his voice.

"Leonard?"

"What?" he said, cringing at how harsh he sounded, how tired and irritated, when really nothing Sheldon did irritated him. Nothing except the fact that he seemed to completely disregard him. The door opened slowly and he saw Sheldon edge inside, standing near the door on the inside of his room.

"Maybe I should tell you in the morning," Sheldon said, glancing at the clock. Leonard followed his gaze to the large red numbers on his clock. Two a.m. He shook his head and sat up, the covers pooling around his waist.

"No. It's okay. I'm up. What is it?"

Sheldon looked beautiful in the dim light from the lamp, and Leonard watched him shift from one foot to the other and glance at him and look down at the floor and clear his throat. He remembered that Sheldon's mother had said you couldn't rush him, and he didn't. He adjusted his glasses and arranged the covers around his legs and waited for Sheldon to tell him whatever it was that had prompted him to come knocking on his door at two in the morning.

"I had a nightmare," Sheldon said, inching closer to the bed, and Leonard watched him, watched as his features were lit by the soft glow of the bedside lamp.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Leonard said, hoping he would sit on the bed, hoping he could take him in his arms and stroke his hair. But Sheldon was tense, uncomfortable with being scared by the nightmare and coming to him for comfort. Leonard felt that he was just a poor substitution for his mother in this instance, and that Penny would have been his first choice but he couldn't wake her at this time. He could wake him, and so he did.

He watched as Sheldon sat on the edge of his bed and wrapped his arms around himself, pulling into himself. If he leaned over a bit he'd brush up against him, but he didn't do that. He stayed still, his back against the pillow, legs crossed under the sheet and blanket.

"It's strange, I haven't had this particular dream since I left home-"

"When you were 11?" Leonard interrupted, feeling the dull jealousy flare as he thought of Sheldon going to college at 11. He tried to remind himself that Sheldon couldn't drive and couldn't figure out sarcasm and all of that, but it wasn't much comfort. He'd wished he could have gone to college at 11.

"Yes, and the dream was about my father. These kind of dreams made sense when I was 11 and living at home and he was always drinking and fighting with my mother, but he's been dead for years now. His presence in my subconscious and subsequent appearance in this dream isn't logical,"

Leonard watched him, watched the troubled look tremble in his eyes. He thought of Sheldon's childhood, similar to his in that Sheldon had to content with bullies and even the kids who weren't bullies avoided him because it was hard for them to understand anything he talked about, Leonard know it was that way for Sheldon as well. But his family was different. His mother was the mother he had always longed for, a mother full of comfort and hugs and understanding. His own mother understood things on clinical levels but not her own son. He'd always longed for Sheldon's mother to be his mother, but this nightmare of Sheldon's was about his father.

Leonard sighed, blinked at the clock that was now flashing ten after two. What did he know about Sheldon's father? He knew that every time Sheldon mentioned him he also mentioned his drinking, and so he was most likely an alcoholic. An alcoholic from Texas who watched football and skeet shooted and knew archery. How did he deal with an obsessive compulsive autistic savant son like Sheldon?

Leonard licked his lips, wondered how to proceed. His own mother's work with dreams and Jungian imagery wasn't helping. The dream probably just had to do with unresolved childhood issues regarding his alcoholic father. No need to overcomplicate things.

"What…do you remember the dream?" Leonard said, reaching up and resting a hand on Sheldon's shoulder. Sheldon looked at his hand there and took a deep breath, but he didn't pull away. Leonard could feel the tense muscles and the bone beneath his hand, and he wanted to slide that hand from his shoulder to his back, but he didn't dare. He could see in Sheldon's eyes that he was barely tolerating this level of touch.

"Yes," he said, and he pulled away, sliding his shoulder out from under Leonard's hand in one slinky movement, and Leonard put his hand back in his lap, surprised that Sheldon let him touch him for that long.

"Do you want to tell me about it? Maybe talking about it will help," Leonard said, looking at Sheldon looking down.


	7. Chapter 7

He wouldn't touch him again, though he wanted to, longed to. He wouldn't. It was enough to listen to his quiet voice describe the dream, a dream filled with shouting parents and hiding places and emotional responses that were not clearly understood by the dreamer. Leonard thought about how Sheldon's voice was quieter at night, in the deep aquamarine hours of the night, less filled with the condescending authority that marked its quality during the day.

He knew enough of Sheldon's childhood, from the snippets he had let slip over the years, that his father was not someone who understood him or was particularly kind to him. He wondered if Sheldon knew this. The understanding part nearly went without saying, who among the masses understood the nearly frightening genius of a mind like Sheldon's? But the kindness part, that's what interested Leonard as he listened to Sheldon. He missed so much of what passed between people in the social interactions of the everyday. Would he have seen his father's looks of exasperation and frustration and derision? Would he have interpreted correctly the sarcasm that was probably his father's primary mode of communicating with him? Leonard thought that maybe Sheldon's lack of social intelligence had protected him from knowing just how cruel his father may have been.

He watched him, watched as his eyes never left the bedspread, watched as his hands twitched slightly as he told this dream. Leonard thought that Sheldon may have been frightened by his parents fights when he was a child, the loud fights filled with breaking dishes and insults hurled as the marriage imploded. But he thought that the looks of indifference gathering toward hate that his parents may have shot one another at the dinner table would have been wholly lost on him. The innocent words said in tones of sarcastic backlash would have been lost on him.

Leonard looked at the clock, at the numbers that crept by, but it didn't matter. Tomorrow was Sunday, today was Sunday. The truth was he didn't really know how Sheldon's childhood was, or how his father may have treated him. He only knew how his own childhood was, and how his mother treated him, and treated him still. Wasn't the old theory about ice mothers, refrigerator mothers, the cause of autism? Funny how the theory fell apart in his own life. He had the refrigerator mother and he was blessed or cursed with none of the symptoms of any of the autistic spectrum disorders. He had always been looking for the one to fill the void, for the person who could complete him. He had always felt like just a half looking for his other half. Looking for the piece of the puzzle to make him whole.

The telling of the dream was done and Sheldon looked up at him with a hopeful expectation that was rare for him. Usually Sheldon operated as though no one had any answers he didn't have. Leonard always felt undone when Sheldon would look at him like that, the needing to know something trembling in his eyes, swimming up through all those layers of blue.

Leonard licked his lips, gazed at Sheldon and felt the longing cramping within him. He wanted to touch him, wanted to feel his smooth soft skin beneath his hands, wanted to force moans and growls from him, wanted to see him lose control. He wanted to make him lose that stiff posture, those exact movements, the precise patterns of speech.

He wanted some form of analysis from him, and he had plenty to fall back on. He had his mother's years of research to fall back on, and he could spew the psycho babble at will, but it wouldn't mean anything. What could he say? It was essentially a memory dream, detailing upsetting events from childhood. It was a dream indicating that he had not properly dealt with his father's influence on his life and the meaning of his death. It was a dream that had something to say about now, about this time, and the figures in the dream were not who they seemed to be, but representations of other people and other things. All the people in the dream were Sheldon, just fragmented aspects of his own psyche. He could say all this and none of it, all this and more, but there was no truth in any of it. The truth was it was almost three a.m. and dawn was about to crack the sky, and he was sitting in his room thousands of miles away from where he grew up, and he was sitting with his roommate, his best friend, the only person he wanted to be with at this moment.

What was the truth? He would never get to kiss Sheldon, or touch him in any way more than a careless hand laid on his shoulder. He would never get to reveal the intricate mess of his inner heart. What he had wasn't enough, but it was something to listen to Sheldon's voice at three in the morning, to hear the cracks and the hitches in it that were a result of this nightmare, that he never heard during the day. It was enough to smell the faint soap and fainter cologne, it was enough to see the blue that edged the dilated pupils of his eyes. It was enough, right now, to be needed in this way if no other.


	8. Chapter 8

Before he could say any of it Sheldon started to cry. Leonard looked at him in alarm. He'd never seen him cry, and he hadn't cried himself in years. He'd felt sadness and frustration in overwhelming measure, but it just brought a slight frown or blank look to his face.

He licked his lips and watched as the tears made Sheldon's eyes appear to be this incredible light green. He wondered again about the depth of the abuse that may have been present in Sheldon's childhood. He didn't know, didn't have any idea. Maybe it wasn't that way at all. Maybe his father had used extraordinary patience with him, had allowed him to be how he was and supported him. Maybe the tears were due to sadness at the loss of the father and father figure. In any event he wasn't sure that Sheldon could even tell him about it, describing any emotional truth was difficult for him.

The tears and the slight hitching sobs moved him to do what he thought he was too afraid to do. He put his arms around Sheldon and drew him close to him. He felt him stiffen in his arms, felt every muscle tighten like piano wire, but then he felt him begin to relax. He was still crying, and Leonard wondered how long it had been since Sheldon had cried before this. It was drummed out of you, being male. But was Sheldon as susceptible to the societal conditioning as he was? He doubted it. His genius and his possible autism kept him immune to so many things.

He liked the feeling of him being in his arms. He felt the hitching from the sobs, felt the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, felt the dampness of his tears on his own clothes. He rocked him slowly, brushed his short hair back. But it wasn't long before he felt Sheldon stiffen up again and pull into himself and pull away. Leonard let him go, watched as he brushed the tears from his face.

"Sheldon, I don't know…I don't know how your childhood was…I can't analyze this for you," he said, his voice nearly a whisper. He wiped the remaining tears from Sheldon's face with his fingertips, softly, softly. Sheldon stared at him as he did it, breathed in that uneven way that crying caused. He felt overwhelmed by his desire for him again, wanting to brush those soft lips with his lips, wanting to run his hands over the major muscle groups.

It was a moment that differed from their usual interactions. It was late late at night, early in the morning. The dream had disturbed Sheldon's usual way of functioning, had opened up some emotional channel that Leonard feared he may be taking advantage of. But that was the benefit of being in touch with emotions and being able to discern the subtle emotional flux in others. That was the key to slipping in and taking advantage. He looked down and hoped it wasn't that way, hoped he wasn't abusing his powers of perception and their friendship because he wanted what had never even occurred to Sheldon.

But the longing had become a real thing, a thing that he was becoming powerless to deny. He would have to try and cross every boundary, knock down every road block that Sheldon had put up, either knowingly or unknowingly. He touched his damp face with his fingertips again and saw how Sheldon's eyes widened slightly at the physical contact. They were losing that green cast and becoming blue again, blue like the sky on a mild morning.

He leaned in and kissed him on the lips, and Sheldon didn't really respond but he didn't pull away. Leonard felt things bursting in his head, felt the frustrated desire get a tiny taste of what it had wanted for so long, demanded for so long, just a drop of rain in the Sahara. He pulled away and looked at Sheldon, gazed at him, his perfect features, his large eyes, his ragged breathing.

"Is this okay?" Sheldon said, looking to him for direction as he would when the situation was overwhelmingly social and he didn't know how to proceed. It made Leonard feel needed, useful, an integral part of things when he did that, when he looked to him for the answers.

"Yes," Leonard said, his voice little more than a breath, and he leaned in again and saw that Sheldon closed his eyes. He responded just a bit more, and being this close to him Leonard could feel his heart beating fast, knew he was scared or at least nervous and unsure. But so was he.


	9. Chapter 9

Sheldon's tongue felt soft in his mouth, his lips soft and yielding, finally. Leonard kept his eyes closed, breathing in the scent of Sheldon's lavender soap and cologne and another scent underneath those that was just him. He flicked his tongue gently against his, felt the uncertainty in Sheldon's response. That tentativeness was sweet and intriguing. This was what he had wanted to do for so long, just a taste of it but it was enough. It was enough to drive out all thoughts of career and pride and dwindling self esteem. For once, for this moment, he could just be.

He wanted to gently push Sheldon down on his bed, unbutton the pajama top and run his hand along his chest. He didn't dare. He felt unable to move beyond this kiss, this timid exploration. He wished he could know what Sheldon was thinking and feeling. He couldn't ask him, he couldn't pry, he couldn't even open his eyes. He tried to control the worry, tried not to feel like he was taking advantage of Sheldon in any way.

Sheldon pulled away, gasping a bit for breath after that prolonged kiss. Leonard looked at him, took in the flushed cheeks and dilated pupils. He didn't seem upset, just confused and aroused. He could see Sheldon fighting with these biological responses and he knew that he was more comfortable dealing with academic inquiries and not physical reactions.

"Why…why did you do that?" Sheldon said, but it was in no way accusatory. It was with pure academic and logical curiosity. Leonard felt like laughing. Wasn't it apparent?

He would have to explain it to him, because that was Sheldon's comfort zone, discussions and analysis of all data. Could you analyze attraction? Wasn't it just hormones and endorphins released to cause an expected biological response?

"Sheldon, I don't know. I've wanted to for a long time but you don't even like people touching you…and tonight I guess I saw an opportunity,"

"You wanted to kiss me for a long time?" he said, glancing around his room, his fingers twitching slightly.

"Why?" he said, looking down at the bedspread. Leonard swallowed hard, not liking where this was going.

"It's hard to explain…but, well, you're attractive to me, for one thing. You're the smartest person I've ever met, ever will meet, you push me to be better at my own work. You make me feel needed, like driving you to work and the comic book store and restaurants and doctor appointments, it's like you're a child I take care of but on the other hand you have this brilliance that is above and beyond anything I've ever encountered. There's a contradiction in these things that excites me, I guess. I don't know. I like how your eyes look when you look down, I like the way your hands twitch sometimes, I like how you don't really understand sarcasm. These things, all these things about you, I don't know. Was it, did you mind that I did that?"

He held his breath waiting for the answer, because the answer would be the unvarnished and absolute truth. He'd never met anyone else who did that, who cut through all the bullshit and told it straight. There would be no games. Either Sheldon liked it and things would go further or he didn't like it and this fantasy would end right here. He swallowed again, still tasting him on his lips.

"No," Sheldon said, and then he looked up at him, looked straight into his eyes with his lake blue ones, "I was surprised by it, because I had assumed that you liked Penny in that way and not me. But I didn't mind. It was interesting,"

Interesting. What did that mean? Leonard shook his head, feeling the confusion start for him. Interesting. Interesting enough to do again, to take further? Where did that leave them? After that brief taste he wanted more. He wanted more right now but he was afraid, afraid to be rejected, afraid to hear a different truth, afraid he would say one time was interesting but he had no desire to do more.

Sheldon stood up slowly, and Leonard leaned back and watched him. He could feel the awkwardness creeping in. How would they function with each other now? Now Sheldon knew he wanted them to be more than roommates and friends. So what would they become?


	10. Chapter 10

Sheldon shut the door softly, leaving Leonard alone. Leonard blinked, felt the warmth from where Sheldon had just been sitting, and he felt more alone now. He felt his stomach twisting in on itself and his head starting to ache. He laid down, wishing that Sheldon hadn't left, that he would lay here with him. At the same time he wasn't surprised that he didn't stay. It was part of what he liked, part of what was drawing him to Sheldon, that aloofness.

Hours later he awoke with the sun streaming through the slats in the blinds and he wondered why he felt so excited and nervous. Then it rushed back to him, that sweet and tentative kiss he had shared with his roommate last night. He closed his eyes and smiled softly, thinking of Sheldon's large blue eyes and how they had closed when he went in for that second kiss.

He thought of getting up and having coffee, watching T.V. and eating breakfast with Sheldon and then he froze, his hand stopped in mid-air as he reached for his glasses on the bedside table. The thought of doing what he had done every Sunday morning for years suddenly sent ice shivers through his body. What would he say? How could he face Sheldon now? What would Sheldon say? Where were they now?

He was afraid to leave his room. He pulled his robe tightly about him and stared at his closed door. He'd have to leave sooner or later. He couldn't just stay in here. But the thought of facing Sheldon overwhelmed him. What would he say?

Was it maybe just a one time thing? He sat on the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands. He didn't want it to be a one time thing. He wanted more, and he wanted this relationship, this cautious and strange relationship to grow and develop, to unfurl like some exotic flower one petal at a time. That was what he wanted. But what did Sheldon want, if anything? He could ask him, but he didn't want to push him and he didn't want to pry and he didn't want to hear anything he didn't want to hear.

He didn't think he had the courage to simply walk into his own kitchen and pour himself a cup of coffee. He swallowed hard, his mouth dry, his hands starting to shake. He felt a panic attack coming on, a full blown panic attack because he was in here and Sheldon was out there. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, in through his nose and out of his mouth, he focused on breathing and not the disastrous step he may have taken last night. What had he done? He'd kissed Sheldon, he'd taken advantage of him at a weak moment, a moment when he had come to him for comfort and support. He had seen the emotional turmoil even if Sheldon had not. He had used that and he got a taste of what he had been desiring. What would Sheldon think of it now in the cold and logical light of day?

"Shit," he muttered, and stood up. Afraid or not he had to go out there. He had to face him sooner or later.

He pushed his door open and stepped cautiously into the hall. The hallway had grown, had elongated by 20 feet or more and he kept walking until he reached the end, until he would emerge from the tunnel into the living room and kitchen.

Sheldon was sitting in his spot on the couch, eating cereal and watching T.V. Penny was in the kitchen leaning on the butcher's block and sipping coffee. He saw the pink of the terry cloth robe she wore, saw her pale wrist and hand emerge from that pink sleeve. He saw her messy dirty blond hair piled on top of her head. She was sipping her coffee and staring at him with wide eyes. He glanced at Sheldon, whom he could only see in profile. Penny put her coffee cup down and her mouth was a tiny O as she continued to stare at him and all at once he knew. Sheldon had told her, of course he did. He had no discretion and no ability to keep anything a secret, and he didn't understand what was appropriate to say to who. He wanted to groan out loud. He didn't want Penny to know this now, it was too new, too raw, too incompletely understood for anyone to know. Anyone but Sheldon would have understood that.

"Uh, good morning," he said, and Penny didn't respond, just continued to stare at him as she sipped her coffee. Sheldon turned at his voice, and he couldn't help but drink him in. Those large eyes, that sleep messy hair, his pale skin, the curve of his bottom lip.

"Good morning, Leonard," Sheldon said, and he didn't sound any different than he did any other morning. Penny was a useful buffer, he had to admit, even though he was certain Sheldon had spilled everything to her.

"Leonard," Penny said, her voice little more than a squeak, "can you, uh, help me with something in my apartment?" She didn't wait for his answer as she walked toward the door, waved to Sheldon, and headed across the hall to her apartment. He followed her, his head down, feeling like he was about to get a scolding.

Once they were both inside Penny shut her door carefully and set her coffee cup down on her coffee table. Then she turned to him, the pink robe opened just enough to reveal the top of her breasts.

"You kissed Sheldon!"

He stared at her, still unable to believe that Sheldon told her. But he knew, he knew this about him as he knew all the other things. This was part of his autism, social disorder thing. He felt a prickling of his limbs and a tightening in his chest. What if Sheldon was not capable of the kind of relationship he wanted to have? What if what had happened was, for Sheldon, not the breathtaking and intoxicating experience that it was to him but just an occurrence? Just something that had happened and that he attached no particular significance to? He didn't know enough not to mention it to Penny, of all people, so what did it really mean to him, if anything?

"Yeah," he said.


	11. Chapter 11

He glanced around Penny's messy apartment, clothes hanging on the backs of chairs, dishes piling up in the sink. He thought of the way Sheldon wrinkled his nose every time he came over here and barely restrained himself from cleaning. He smiled a little, despite feeling like he was as exposed as a newborn now that Penny knew. She not only knew that he kissed Sheldon but she knew that he was in some kind of turmoil over him, that he wanted what he might never have. She knew all of this and possibly more, depending on exactly what Sheldon had told her.

He sunk into her couch and looked up at her, his robe pulled tightly around him. She had retrieved her coffee cup from the coffee table and sipped it, her green eyes staring over the rim at him. She was perched on the arm of the couch. He sighed, knowing he was going to ask her for all the specifics.

"What…why did Sheldon tell you?" Start with why, it was a good place to start, "did he look upset, or like something was wrong?"

Penny shook her head, her blond hair shaking like tassels around her pale freckled cheeks.

"I went over to borrow some milk for my coffee, and he was up, getting his cereal, and I just asked him what was new. And he said you kissed him,"

Leonard lowered his head, feeling not surprise but a dull kind of wonder that Sheldon truly had no discretion.

"Then what did you say? Tell me everything, Penny, I have no clue here,"

"Well, I said, 'what do you mean, Leonard kissed you?' And he said that he had had a nightmare last night and was upset about it and he went to your room at two in the morning, and that you kissed him, on the lips with tongue. I dragged those details out of him,"

Leonard groaned and looked up at the ceiling. Sheldon. Jesus.

"Yeah, okay, but did he say how he felt about it? Did he say he was upset, or happy, or anything?"

Penny finished her coffee and set the empty cup down, brushed the loose tendrils of hair away from her face and was quiet for a moment.

"Leonard, you've known Sheldon for longer than I have, and out of the two of you you are much more in tune with other people and the things that they think and feel. You know how Sheldon is, he will tell you facts and he'll recount events, but has he ever attached any kind of emotion to those things? We don't know how in touch with his own emotions he is, but even if he has some grasp of that he's never explained any of it to me. He just told me what happened, matter of factly, and he said it was interesting. I asked him if he was upset, of course, because I still had no clear idea of what had happened. He said he wasn't upset,"

Leonard shifted on the couch, blinked his eyes behind his lenses and then took off his glasses and wiped the lenses clean with the edge of his robe.

"You like Sheldon?" she said, peering at him, trying to look into his tiny eyes with her large aqua green ones. He slapped his glasses back on his face and brushed his hair off his forehead.

"Yeah, of course! I kissed him, didn't I? He came to my room at two in the morning, all upset over some dream about his father and I put my hand on his shoulder and I pulled him close to me and I kissed him! But now I can't figure out if it means anything to him. Interesting doesn't mean anything, lots of things are interesting to him, lots of things that are just useless information to everybody else! Does he think of it as just as interesting as tomatoes being a fruit but people think they are vegetables? Does he think of it as just as interesting as the Romans putting spiced toast in their punch bowls and that's why it's called a toast? I mean, Penny, I don't know where he is on this, what he thinks, if he's even capable of a relationship in the same way that I am. I can't win here. I like this about him, I like how aloof he is, how unencumbered by the demands of other people. I see this, this way he has of not really needing anybody, but it's ironic, because I need him. I just don't know if this is a possibility,"


	12. Chapter 12

Leonard sat on the edge of Penny's couch and listened to her get ready for work. He listened to the rush of the water in the shower, imagined the steam as it clouded the mirror over the sink. He bit on his lips, feeling fear. He was afraid to go back to his apartment. He was afraid of Sheldon, or what Sheldon was thinking. Or feeling, or not feeling. He was afraid of what he had done and why he had done it. That kiss didn't help anything, it just made murky waters murkier.

He listened as Penny shut the water off and he heard the plumbing give that hollow bang, the same way it did in his apartment. He could hear the rustle of the towel as she dried her hair, he could hear her humming to herself in her tuneless way. He could feel his heart beating too fast, could feel his fear coursing through his veins. He couldn't hide here for long. He lived there. He lived with him. He had to go back and face him, and face what he had done. He tried to examine this fear, tried to find comfort in analysis. He was like that, too. His genius was similar to Sheldon's in that way. He took comfort in data, in logical conclusions, and though he understood emotions and people's feelings for the most part he didn't always enjoy that aspect of things, didn't feel comforted there. What was the source of this fear? That he had kissed Sheldon? Not exactly. It was nice. It was a tender kiss in a strange moment, when they both weren't quite themselves, when the late hour worked upon them to give an unexpected opportunity. Sheldon was inexperienced and nervous, but his kiss was soft and tentative and stirred up longings in him, pulled him on that wave of desire that he could almost ride like some crazy surfer. The kiss wasn't the problem, and seeing Sheldon now after it wasn't the problem. It hadn't upset him, he had told both Penny and himself that, and he didn't lie easily. Lies were accompanied by facial tics and even odder tones of voice, lying was transparent with him. The problem, the fear, was all in what Sheldon wanted and how he had perceived it. The fear was that Sheldon didn't want anything, was no more attracted to him than he was attracted to a stranger passing by in the hallways at the university.

He stood up, walked to her refrigerator and peered in at a rotting avocado and some baking soda and a few bottled waters and closed the door. He ran the water in the kitchen sink and washed his hands. He glanced toward Penny's door and waited for her to emerge.

She did, dressed in her Cheesecake Factory uniform, her hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. She smiled at him and he tried his best to smile back, and he paced a bit more and went back to sitting on the arm of the couch, his stocking feet resting on the cushion.

"Penny, help me. I'm lost. I don't know what to do," he said, hearing the naked pleading in his voice. Penny was the expert in these matters, both he and Sheldon understood that. Penny knew how to relate to the world and the people in it in a way that Sheldon never would, and in a way that he was inexperienced with at best.

"Okay," she said, sitting down near him, looking up with her kind Penny eyes.

"How do you feel about Sheldon?" she said, smoothing the skirt of her uniform, sipping the last of her coffee. Leonard closed his eyes and envisioned his roommate, his difficult, wonderful, brilliant roommate and best friend and now what? He could see those large blue eyes brimming with the frightening genius that baffled most people but that sucked him in, that let him aspire to, that let him feel hopeful and that he could never measure up at the same time. He saw the way his hands would shake sometimes, the long fingers and trimmed nails, he saw the long neck and prominent adam's apple, the narrow shoulders and long thin arms. He felt himself wanting. Just wanting. Wanting to kiss him again and do more, wanting to hear his voice crack and speak in whispers, wanting to see desire reflected in his eyes.

He cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts and prepared to tell Penny just how he felt. He hoped that with all the information she could guide him.

"Sheldon is the single most intelligent person I've ever met. I know that maybe to you we all seem so smart, me and Howard and Raj, and we are all geniuses. We were all the top in our classes, the top at our respective universities, the top in our fields. But Penny, Sheldon is so far above us. He's, his I.Q. is higher, and probably higher than tests can even measure. He, when he compares himself to Einstein or Newton or whoever, he isn't exaggerating. He's that smart, if not smarter. If anyone can prove string theory, it will be him. Do you know what that means? It is paradigm altering. If he does it he will be in all the science books, his name will become as common as Einstein's. I love this about him, and I'm intimidated by it. Before I met him I had never met anyone smarter than I am. I had met people nearly as smart, but I'd never met anyone who could surpass me. He can. Can you understand what this was like? Like with you, you are so pretty, so beautiful, imagine meeting someone whose beauty surpasses yours? He makes me want to strive, and no one had ever made me feel like that, not anyone I'd ever met. Nobel prize winners and the scientists from the books, they made me feel a ghost of it. But to meet someone with that potential, to live with them and see the way their mind works, to see the leaps and jumps and twists in his thinking, it's startling,"

Penny listened, and this was one of her more endearing qualities. She would really listen, and he was grateful for her in his turmoil. He cleared his throat again and went on.

"He's, but at the same time he's so innocent. He knows things that are so beyond the everyday experiences and knowing of most people, but he's so lost with people, with social interactions, with social situations. But I like this, too. It's sweet, and it's troubling at the same time. I think he's autistic,"

"Autistic? Like Rainman?" Penny said, her brow wrinkling. Did this never occur to her? But maybe she didn't really know what it was, she had no college education to speak of, and not everyone grew up with a psychiatrist mother like he did.

"Sort of, but I think he's higher functioning, if he has it. He probably has asperger's, which is a high functioning form of it. He recognizes that he doesn't understand sarcasm, and he recognizes that he doesn't understand what people think and feel just by looking at them. Sometimes he tries to be more socially appropriate but sometimes he doesn't, or he just doesn't understand the situation. Like telling you about the kiss. He shouldn't have, and he would have understood that if he maybe didn't have autism, see? But if he does have it will he be able to reciprocate in a relationship?"

"You think he's autistic? But isn't this like a disability?" Penny said, and he could see by her worried expression that this truly had never occurred to her. Did she think he was just like that? Did she think he was weird because he was so smart? It was nice in a way, nice that she didn't label him like he had, but then maybe she just didn't have the knowledge to.

"I do think he is. He has routines, because when you don't understand the social aspects of the world routines provide structure and predictability. He talks, a lot, but have you noticed that he doesn't have conversations the way most people do? He has a narrow range of interests and he'll talk about these at length, despite the social cues that other people don't want to hear it. He doesn't pick up on those cues, he can't recognize that you're bored or irritated by your expression. He was sick a lot as a child, and anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a link with frequent illnesses in childhood and autism. And his hearing, another strange but frequently observed association with autism. A lot of autistic people have excellent hearing, that's why they'll cover their ears when a vacuum is running or something. Noise bothers him. Like whistling. I think that's why he doesn't like it, it's at a pitch that hurts his ears. He has so many of the symptoms. He has food rituals, leisure activity rituals, the knocking thing. And drugs. Drugs tend to effect people with autism differently. Remember when he was drinking coffee? Or alcohol? Why do you think he usually avoids any kind of substance? Not just because his mother told him to but because he can't handle those things, and he knows it. So he is almost a textbook case of autism, and he's a savant. Being a savant is a splinter skill, genius in one area. His area is physics and higher mathematics. But I love all this about him, his genius and his autism and his beauty. He's so beautiful, his eyes, how tall he is, how thin he is. I'm overwhelmed by him, by everything about him. I'm in love with him, and I'm terrified that he can't love me back,"

Penny smiled a sad smile at him and touched his leg.

"Sweetie? I think you might be, I don't know, overanalyzing it. Maybe this thought about autism isn't helping, only because you think he'll do or not do certain things because of it. But he's an individual, not a case in a textbook. Maybe he has these limitations, but everyone does. Like me, you know? I'm terrible with money and overspend and get in trouble when I can't pay my bills, and I was awful in school, I hated to pay attention and had trouble paying attention and I'd get bored and I hated to study. But did I have ADD or some learning disability? Was I unable to study? Maybe if I tried harder I could have done better in school. If Sheldon feels about you the way you feel about him, he can try to make a relationship work, and he can do the best he can even if he is autistic. Maybe you should just try to go slow, just hang out with him and see if another chance to kiss him or whatever comes up, don't rush into things, especially with Sheldon. Go back to your apartment and don't be afraid. You'll be fine if you just take things one moment at a time,"


	13. Chapter 13

Penny was right. She was right. Sheldon wasn't a case in a textbook. He was an individual, he was Sheldon Lee Cooper, with all that that meant. He sat on the couch, preparing to get up and go to his apartment, but not quite yet. He thought about his thought patterns that made it so easy to categorize things, and people, and emotions, and experiences. Did he want everything to come out with precise data like his experiments in his lab? Did he not understand yet that life and people and the messy interactions between them weren't like the sterile conditions of the lab?

There was a very real way in which he did not understand this. Was this the dark side of being a genius? Was this the social ineptitude that he had, too? He wasn't autistic but he wasn't so comfortable with social interactions, either. What caused this? The simple difference of being so much smarter than almost everyone around him? He'd read once that being a genius was as socially debilitating as being mentally retarded, because your thought process was as different from those around you, it was just as hard to relate. But he could relate to Sheldon. He could relate to not getting what was going on at parties or in a schoolyard or with his neighbor and the girls she went out dancing with. He could relate to his drive to succeed in the field of physics and to make discoveries that could illuminate certain problematic theories that twisted up a clear understanding of the universe. And he could relate to the routines that provided structure and comfort when they were away from the lab.

The hard part of Penny's advice was taking things moment by moment. That seemed to leave too wide an area of uncertainty. But what choice did he have? Things had to go moment by moment, he had to see where that kiss might lead them, and he had to do it slowly. He couldn't rush Sheldon or even himself. So she was right, and it would be hard and scary but it might just be beautiful.

"Okay," he said, and stood up, cinched his robe tightly around him. Penny smiled at him as she tucked a stray blond hair behind her ear.

"Okay," she echoed, and watched him leave.

He stared at the door with the huge rivets, the closed door that held all he cherished behind it. He took a deep breath, trying to calm down, trying to feel okay about himself and what he did and whatever Sheldon might be thinking. Maybe he could ask him? That wonderful ability to tell the truth might come in handy in this situation.

"Hey," he said as he walked in. Sheldon was dressed and sitting at his computer, typing away, the glow illuminating his face. Leonard blinked, feeling light headed, feeling like the world might be ending. He wasn't very good at taking things one moment at a time.

"Hi," Sheldon said, the word slightly stretched out, the way he said it. Was that a Texas twang thing or just an idiosyncrasy of Sheldon's speech? He didn't know, but he'd always liked the way he said hi, and it was infrequent, since he usually would say hello.

Leonard sunk into the couch, very carefully sitting on the middle cushion and not in Sheldon's spot. He heard his own ragged breathing and felt the beginnings of a panic attack. Sheldon didn't notice that he was about to hyperventilate himself to death. It was because Sheldon didn't notice anything. Leonard licked his lips and felt a very curious emotion start to overtake him. Anger. If he couldn't have Sheldon and be assured that Sheldon felt exactly toward him as he felt then he could be angry with him. As the anger started to build, building like storm clouds on a mid-west horizon, he understood part of it. It was just defensive, just because he felt vulnerable and exposed and anger was such a lovely counterpart to that. But understanding didn't lesson the anger, the red hot rage that was boiling through his blood stream and wanting to explode through his fingertips.

From where he sat he could see Sheldon's back, he saw the bit of exposed neck, the smooth skin, the delicate way he tilted his head. He felt anger about everything, things that weren't Sheldon's fault and he knew it wasn't fair. He was angry with Sheldon for making him like him, for being so beautiful, for being so ritualistic, for making him want with little hope of ever getting. Did he steal that kiss? Was it something that could never be repeated? He wanted to get up and shake Sheldon, demand to know for better or worse where they stood. He wanted to know exactly what he was thinking and feeling. Did he like him, did he reciprocate in any way, form, or fashion? Did that kiss mean anything to him other than it being "interesting"?

He stood up, getting his breathing under control. Sheldon didn't turn from his work or speak to him or make any indication that he was aware of his presence. Genius, focus, autism, whatever it was that was causing Sheldon to ignore him in this moment was increasing his anger. He balled his hands into fists and stomped off down the hall to take a shower.

In the shower, the water as hot as he could stand it, he felt his anger melt away. He wasn't angry with Sheldon, he was just frustrated with himself. He was afraid of his emotions and his desire and afraid that he'd be let down again, just another let down in the social emotional arena that baffled him. The water soothed his anger, let it melt into frustration and then timid hope. All wasn't lost. He'd kissed Sheldon and the kiss was exquisite. He could kiss him again. He could get dressed and suggest to Sheldon that they go to the comic book store, a Chinese restaurant, a movie, and he could let the moments unfold.


	14. Chapter 14

He had cleared a circle in the steam on the bathroom mirror and was shaving very carefully. He didn't want nicks or cuts. He wanted to look perfect. That wasn't quite how he ever saw himself, far from it. He had a thousand complaints about his looks but he'd mostly let those go, but now, in the face of Sheldon's overwhelming beauty he felt those complaints creeping back. His poor eyesight and the thick lenses that made his small eyes appear even smaller, his height, his dark unruly hair.

He dressed slowly, feeling more comfortable in the armor of his jeans and T-shirt and hoodie sweatshirt. He put a dash of aftershave on, tied his sneakers, and headed out of his room and down the long hall to where Sheldon was.

Sheldon. He felt a dull shame flush his cheeks as he thought of his unreasonable anger earlier. It had come upon him like a storm out of a clear blue day. A tornado touching down in the shambles of a trailer park. He took a deep breath and remembered Penny's words. Take things moment by moment.

"Sheldon?" he cleared his throat and heard how funny his voice sounded, how raw and naked and pleading, and he thanked God that Sheldon was really unable to pick up on tones of voice.

"Hmmmm?" Sheldon said, not turning around to look at him. Busy. Busy solving something or formulating some equation that might solve a problem that had plagued the greater minds for decades. Leonard was reluctant to interrupt him, but he felt that he had to. He had to try for an afternoon with him, for going out somewhere, for seeing what that kiss meant, if anything.

"Uh, hey, do want to go to the comic book store? I thought I saw a new, uh, Flash,"

Sheldon whipped his head around at that, and Leonard felt pierced by those blue eyes. Deliciously on the hook. He blinked and waited for him to contradict him, probably he knew all about the publishing schedule or something. There was no end and no telling what he knew.

"A new one? You saw it?" Sheldon said, the eagerness in his voice making Leonard regret his lie. That was a great way to start this, with lies. He looked down at his sneakers, the white leather bit that was scuffed and dirty, the faded black canvas and dishwater gray laces. Starting with lies. That wasn't at all what Penny meant.

"I, I thought I did, maybe," Hedging the lie, it was only what he thought he saw. Perceptions could be misleading and false. He saw the eagerness in Sheldon's eyes start to fade.

"You don't sound so certain," Sheldon said.

"Well, um, I'm not that certain, maybe I didn't see it at all…" This was a disaster. He sounded like a tiny child trapped in a well, his voice just an echo of an echo. All he wanted to do was pull Sheldon close to him, lean in for another kiss, deeper this time, all encompassing. Something they could both get lost in. Instead he was trying to lie his way to the comic book store and to a restaurant, trying to lie his way to hours spent in Sheldon's presence.

"Yes, let's go," Sheldon said, standing up, "I'm done here anyway,"

Leonard blinked, watched as Sheldon took his jacket from the closet. It was the jacket he always wore, a light windbreaker with dark beige on the top and lighter beige near the waist. He slipped on his jean jacket over his hoodie, grabbed the keys from the bowl, and they left.

He didn't put on the radio in the car, Sheldon didn't like it. He liked music, but only when he chose it. In the car, the radio, it was too uncertain. Leonard thought the screeching pitch of certain songs and radio pitchmen hurt his ears. He glanced over at him. Sheldon was looking out the passenger side window, and he could see the way the light played across the planes of his face, how it made his blue eyes appear lighter.

He drove automatically, a deeply ingrained habit. He had been driving since he was 16. He thought about how Sheldon didn't drive and maybe couldn't drive. Was it an almost natural give and take? Sheldon could do such extraordinary mental and mathematical feats, but he couldn't master the task of driving, something average people did all the time. Was there something involved in driving that Sheldon didn't have the ability to do? Leonard sometimes thought it had to do with a property of probabilities, a statistical analysis that was possible to do while driving but not at all helpful to the actual task. He thought that maybe Sheldon's mind raced with all the possibilities of accidents and the result of these given the speed of the vehicles and the weight of everything and everyone involved, and that it was these almost unconscious calculations that prevented him from actually being able to drive.

"Want to play a game?" Sheldon suggested, and Leonard nodded, although he didn't particularly want to play one of their car games. He wanted to veg out listening to a melancholy song on the radio. He couldn't concentrate on the game and ended up losing, and he ended up getting a disgusted look from Sheldon due to his poor performance.

At the comic book store the familiar pulp paper smell and the smell of plastic enveloped him. He kept half an eye on Sheldon as he rifled through a new stack of comic books. He could tell when something pleased or amused him by the tilt of his head. When Sheldon would smile, that crooked little half smile that only seemed to come out at the comic book store, he would feel like smiling. But mostly he felt a dull ache in the pit of his stomach, he felt like he was somehow devouring himself cell by cell, he wanted him so badly. He wanted to touch his hand, he wanted to rub his back, taste his teeth. He wanted, and he dropped his hands from the comic books and balled them into fists again. He bit the insides of his cheeks and tried to keep Penny's words in his mind. Why were the moments so hard for him? Why did he want to rush through them like flipping through the pages of a novel just so you could find out what happens in the end?

He saw that Sheldon had a few comic books in his hand and was heading for the check-out line, and outside he saw the light starting to fade from the sky. He stood next to him in line. Sheldon looked down at him, his eyes softly questioning.

"Not getting anything?" he said, and Leonard nodded.

"Couldn't find anything," he said.

The line crept forward, and Leonard tried to think of how he could casually suggest they go out for Chinese food for dinner. It was like preparing to call up someone and ask them on a date, your fingers shaking as you dial the numbers, the eternity of time between the striking of the last number and the tiny ringing of the phone in your ear. All the possibilities were in that silence.

He watched the transaction he'd seen a thousand times before, the methodical way Sheldon had of counting out the money and handing it over. He was holding his breath unconsciously and then he forced himself to breath.

On the brief walk from the door of the comic book store to the car he just blurted it out.

"Hey, want to go and have Chinese food for dinner?"

Sheldon barely blinked at him, barely seemed to notice the hitch in his voice and the raw pleading in his eyes.

"Okay,"

Leonard let out a deep sigh of relief that was lost in the wind, and as he got into the driver's side of the car he wished he did something that could take his mind off of things for a moment, something like smoking. It would be nice to have something else to concentrate on.

Sheldon was quiet on the way to the restaurant. He was flipping through his new comic books. Leonard glanced at him from time to time, a small smile on his lips.


	15. Chapter 15

Leonard pulled carefully into a spot in the parking lot. He was concentrating on one task at a time, one turn of the wheel. He felt like he couldn't even look at Sheldon, he was so nervous. He licked his lips, felt their dry surface with his tongue. To Sheldon this probably wasn't anything, just another Chinese food dinner like the thousands they've had before. He couldn't stand this. Maybe it did mean something to him, maybe the kiss was important in Sheldon's world like it was in his. There was no way to know unless he point blank asked him, and he didn't have the courage to do that. He didn't think that was even the right thing to do. He thought this relationship that he wanted could grow and develop, and it wouldn't be able to do that if he demanded things of Sheldon, if he demanded to know what everything meant.

The restaurant was dim, and colored with golds and reds. He glanced over at the display case that held porcelain Buddhas and tiny tea cups. They both stood at the wooden podium and waited to be seated. This was one of the select restaurants that Sheldon went to. He would go to a new one but it was somewhat of an ordeal. He would worry out loud about the food and the quality and the lighting and the seating and the noise level and if the staff was any good. So usually they went to the restaurants that were already established as "Sheldon approved".

Once they were seated Sheldon flipped through the menu, but it was only to choose between a few of the things he always ordered. Leonard didn't think that was so much a symptom of autism, a lot of people did that. A lot of people found their comfort zones.

When the waiter came Leonard found himself ordering a rum and coke, feeling the need to loosen up just a bit. He noticed the waiter's slender wrist and hand as he jotted down the order. He let Sheldon order the rest of their meal, and he listened to his deep voice as he listed the items, and qualified others. He watched Sheldon almost force himself to make eye contact at least once during the ordering process, but mostly he looked at the menu or down at the table.

The waiter gathered up their menus and left, and Leonard listened as Sheldon began talking about certain problematic equations he had been dealing with, and he didn't want to let on that some of the things he mentioned weren't that clear to him. He tried to tell himself it just wasn't what he dealt with, he dealt more with experimental physics as opposed to theoretical physics. But some of his non-understandings could be the difference between Sheldon's intellect and his own, and he could feel himself getting lost in admiration again. He listened, and nodded, and wouldn't dare admit that some of what he was saying was beyond him.

His rum and coke arrived and he took a small sip, and he told himself sternly to pace himself. He didn't want to drink this and then another and then let something slip that shouldn't slip. This was a type of game, whether he liked that or not. He took another small sip and listened to Sheldon, getting lost in the numbers.

The food arrived but his appetite had been small lately. He picked at a few dumplings and sipped his drink and gazed at Sheldon's eyes, clear and large and blue. Sheldon looked at him every so often, those eyes catching his and throwing him off guard, and he felt that twisting roller coaster feeling in the pit of his stomach and he wondered what Sheldon was feeling.

He sipped his drink faster than he should have and began to look for the waiter to bring him another one. He was starting to feel warm and happy despite the fear that he was delusional regarding Sheldon and any sort of relationship that they could have beyond that of colleagues, roommates, and friends. He started thinking that his previous thought about this being a game wasn't a good one, and that part of what he liked about Sheldon was his overwhelming honesty. A game of this nature was essentially dishonest. Why couldn't he bring up this kiss and what it might mean?

The waiter returned and Leonard pointed to his empty glass, and he nodded, and Sheldon continued to talk about equations and theories that he was having trouble following. But he was just listening to the tone of his voice, he was just feeling himself getting lost in his eyes.

"Sheldon," Leonard said, "I want to talk about what you said earlier, what you said about the kiss being interesting," He feared these words, feared this train of thought, now that it was out of his mouth. But the alcohol had given him courage and he plunged ahead.

"Okay," Sheldon said mildly, and his expression and tone of voice was inscrutable. It was like a puzzle, and figuring it out was giving Leonard a headache, and he could feel it start to pulse and throb behind his eyes. Why did it have to be this way?

"Interesting doesn't really mean anything. I mean, you think a lot of things are interesting. It doesn't tell me where we are, I have no clue here. I want to think that it meant more to you than when Thailand got the fork or why the Romans put spiced toast in their punch bowls. I want to know what it means to you,"

Naked and exposed, it was all out there. Leonard felt himself literally unable to breathe as he stared at Sheldon, at his large blue eyes and the shape of his nose and the way his lips were slightly parted. He saw how the dim light reflected off of his pale skin, the way his slender fingers held the chop sticks loosely between them.

"What does it mean to you?" Sheldon said, and Leonard started to breathe again, shallowly and carefully, like too much oxygen at once might harm him.

"It means, it meant…" he felt the words trailing off, felt that there were no words behind those to express it.


	16. Chapter 16

There were no words as he sat and stared at Sheldon and wondered if he was drunk off of two rum and cokes. He swallowed, licked his lips, tried to speak and heard just a croak, the sound of a dying witch.

"It's hard to say, but I like being with you, I like…" Sheldon continued to gaze at him with his mild blue stare, and he didn't seem particularly upset or excited by this discussion. Leonard could feel his heart beating so hard in his chest that it was starting to hurt.

He'd never had the gift of eloquence. He couldn't put his thoughts and feelings into words. He couldn't tell him that he loved being with him and felt empty when they were apart. He couldn't tell him that his voice sent shivers down his spine, that his unexpected gaze made his blood pressure spike. He couldn't tell him he knew how smooth his skin was just by looking at it.

"I like you, Sheldon," he said, and he looked at the white table cloth and fiddled with its edge. Badly stated, badly put, and what in the world was Sheldon thinking now? That he had gone crazy? That he was a drunken blubbering mess in front of him? That he was all squinty eyes and barely completed sentences?

"Did it mean anything to you?" he said, his voice raw with the pleading. He downed the rest of his drink, cursing himself for demanding things when he had wanted to be subtle. So much for letting things grow. The dim light of the restaurant hid the sheen of sweat on his face.

Sheldon looked down and to the side, and Leonard recognized that he was formulating some answer. When the questions involved science or some arcane knowledge Sheldon was quicker to answer and comfortable. Such an analysis of his emotional response was not making him comfortable, and it might not even be possible.

"Okay," Sheldon began, having come up with something, "it made me feel warm,"

Leonard squinted at him through his thick lenses, and felt his glasses begin to slide down his nose. He put them back in place with a quick thrust of his forefinger. Warm? What did that mean? Was he describing a purely physiological state? Was that how he interpreted his emotional response? Everything Sheldon said about this was more inscrutable than the last. Leonard shook his head as the waiter came by with their check.

"Let's go," he said to Sheldon, standing up and feeling the drinks slosh inside of him and make him sway. Warm?

Outside, the sun laying warm and dry and yellow on everything, he fumbled with his key. From the corner of his eye he saw Sheldon standing by the passenger door, waiting. He could devour him just from the corner of his eye. He could notice everything. He noticed how the plaid pants clashed with the T-shirt he wore. He noticed how the long sleeved shirt was pushed up to his elbows. He noticed how his hands shook slightly as he held the take out box. He noticed how he squinted his eyes against the last rays of the sun.

In the car he tried to calm down and breathe. Warm wasn't a bad answer. He rested his hands on the top of the steering wheel and lowered his head. Sheldon put the take out on the floor between his feet.

"Leonard," he said, and Leonard lifted his head and turned to him. Sheldon was looking right at him, straight on eye contact that he knew was difficult for him. Because Sheldon's eyes were such a light blue he could see that they were dilated. He saw how his breathing was faster and more shallow than usual.

"I like you, too," he said, and he closed his eyes and leaned toward him, and the kiss that followed was tentative and sweet. Leonard flicked Sheldon's tongue lightly with his, and he could feel the sun shining through the window on them, and he felt the warmth from the sun on his cheeks and he felt the warmth of the unexpected kiss throughout his entire being.

Sheldon was the first one to pull away, and he glanced at Leonard quickly and blinked and looked down and away. Leonard licked his lips, tasting the Chinese food they had both just eaten, and tasting beneath that the sweet taste that was just Sheldon. He smiled, but Sheldon didn't see it. He had turned his head and was staring out the window. Slowly, Leonard put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road, ready to take them both home.


	17. Chapter 17

Driving home, he felt the warmth from that kiss infusing throughout his entire being, and he had to admit that Sheldon was right. It felt warm, and that was the perfect way to describe it. He glanced at him and took in his profile, every perfect angle and line of his face, the iridescent sheen of his eyes.

He wanted to feel happy or content for just one single moment, but he could feel the doubts like maggots borrowing into the meat of his mind. What did it mean now? Was it just these two kisses, would it lead to more, would it lead to a defined relationship, as their being roommates was defined? It wasn't just Sheldon who liked parameters. He shook his head at himself and wondered why he was incapable of taking Penny's advice and why he couldn't take things one moment at a time.

He pulled into his parking spot and let out his breath. What was wrong with him? He'd doubted he'd ever get so far, thought that he'd be pinned under Sheldon's beauty and obliviousness for months or even years to come. But tonight Sheldon had kissed him. That was big. That was a huge step, and he should be able to appreciate it.

He followed Sheldon into the lobby of the building and saw Penny gathering her mail, her blond hair hanging in a neat ponytail down the center of her uniform. She turned and smiled at them.

"Hi, guys," she said, and she looked beyond Sheldon right into his eyes, and he could read all the questions there. The silent moment between them went unnoticed by Sheldon.

"Hello, Penny," Sheldon said in his usual tone, shifting the take-out bag from one hand to the other.

"That smells good," Penny said, leaning toward the bag in Sheldon's hand and inhaling.

"Did you eat?" Leonard said, jingling the car keys in his hand, still tasting the kiss on his lips. Standing behind Sheldon he noticed the way his shoulder blades were slightly visible beneath his two shirts.

"No, unless you call half a cracker and a sip of coke eating,"

Inside their apartment he felt unsure of what to do, where to stand and where to put his hands. How to proceed? Sheldon turned on his computer after he hung up his jacket neatly in the closet. Leonard glanced at the take-out bag on the counter.

"I'm gonna go see if Penny wants this," he said, and Sheldon nodded without looking at him.

He felt the humming nervous energy that he had around Sheldon lately subsiding as he knocked on Penny's door. She opened it and smiled when he held up the take-out bag.

Inside her apartment, perched on the edge of her couch, he watched her devour their take-out. He thought of the kiss, of Sheldon saying he liked him, too, and leaning toward him.

"So? What happened?" she said around a mouthful of brown rice.

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and inhaled the aroma of the Chinese food.

"Well, I drank too much and wasn't cool, I demanded to know what he thought of the kiss the other night and I thought I was probably scaring him, and I wasn't taking things moment by moment at all, but then in the car he kissed me,"

Penny shrieked happily and punched his leg.

"Wow, he did? He kissed you? See, you were getting all hung up on crazy things that you can't micromanage like you do with all the data in your lab. That's the thing with you, and Sheldon, too. You act like all of life is like a lab experiment, or some equation where everything will work out. Outside of the laboratory things are a little messier than that,"

He pressed his lips together and nodded. She had a point. He glanced at her door, feeling ready to go and face Sheldon again, and let the moments be what they would be.

Back in his apartment Sheldon was watching T.V. and drinking tea. The twilight purple sky had turned to black and seemed to press on the windows, and the adrenaline and the alcohol made him suddenly sleepy. He slipped his shoes off and sat on the couch next to Sheldon, but there was space between them. He didn't know where the boundaries were anymore, and he was afraid to cross that foot of space that separated them.

The T.V droned on through a series of shows that Sheldon liked, and he was perfectly happy to let him choose. His eyelids were slipping closed and he felt warm again, and he'd let Sheldon do whatever he wanted to. He was growing so tired but he didn't want to leave this space, didn't want to leave Sheldon just yet. He didn't look forward to the emptiness of his bed, the cold creeping toward him and sinking into his cells.

His eyelids slid shut and he felt the beginnings of sleep, the way his thoughts started to stretch and were accompanied by fluid images. He felt a weight on his shoulder, and he glanced over and saw that Sheldon had fallen asleep, too, and rested his head on his shoulder. He smiled and felt comforted under the weight, the gentle pressure, the sweet smell of his shampoo, the silky feel of his hair as it brushed his cheek.


	18. Chapter 18

Leonard took a deep breath, feeling the lovely weight of Sheldon's head on his shoulder. This was a moment, the dim glow of the T.V. and the scent of Sheldon's shampoo and the way he could see his eyes moving beneath his closed lids. The kiss earlier in the day was a moment. These little things could bring them closer to whatever it was he wanted, whatever commitment and physical closeness and further interweaving of their lives. It was what Penny meant.

He wanted to gently wake Sheldon up and get him to go to bed with him, to curl up in his warmth beneath his comforter. It didn't have to go further than that, not tonight. His bed and the vast spaces in it were too much for him tonight. He wanted to fall asleep with his arm across Sheldon's chest.

Fear burrowed itself into his brain and he knew that he didn't have the courage to lead Sheldon to his bedroom and even if he did he wasn't sure that Sheldon would agree to that. These kisses they had recently shared were astonishing enough. He couldn't push things, he couldn't force Sheldon beyond whatever boundaries there were.

He swallowed hard, wanting to put his arm around Sheldon as he slept but he didn't dare. There was so much that he didn't dare. Wasn't that part of the appeal of this? He knew it was. Sheldon seemed so fragile to him sometimes, so twisted up in his routines and caught in the equations in his mind.

He shifted slightly beneath Sheldon as he slept, he gazed down at those lips that he longed to kiss again. He watched the soft in and out of Sheldon's breathing, the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath the two soft and over washed T-shirts. He noticed every pleat and wrinkle in his pants. He felt the longing inside of him like a real thing, like an animal, some snake that had wrapped itself around all of his internal organs. He held his breath and brushed his lips against Sheldon's cheek, felt the softness and the smoothness of his skin beneath his dry and cracked lips. He didn't wake, he didn't even stir. Leonard slowly let out his pent up breath.

"Sheldon," he whispered, shaking him. Sheldon didn't awake easily. He sat up a little and looked at him as though he had no idea who he was. It was the only time the sharp intelligence wasn't visible in his eyes.

"Huh?" Sheldon said, his voice thick with sleep. He was looking at Leonard as though he not only didn't know who he was but he didn't know where he was. Leonard had been called everyone in Sheldon's earlier life when waking him, everyone from Meemaw to his twin sister Missy.

"Sheldon, it's late," Leonard said, seeing the understanding coming into his eyes. It was like Sheldon went into the past when he slept and upon waking had to age all the years to the present.

"Okay," he said, standing up. Leonard gazed up at him, gazed at his slender legs and his narrow hips. If he was brave he could trail after him, he could take his hand and lead him to his bedroom, undress him layer by layer until it was all before him. But he wasn't brave. He sat on the couch, drew his legs up and tucked himself into his scared little shell like a turtle, watched Sheldon pour himself a glass of milk and gulp it down.

Sheldon went down the hall to his bedroom and he heard the soft click of the door latch. He could still go after him, still hope to be let in. But he knew he wouldn't. After watching a few mind numbing minutes of infomercials and insurance commercials he flipped the T.V. off and stood up and headed off to bed, alone.


	19. Chapter 19

The alarm clock went off at its predicted time, and Leonard rolled over and slapped it off. Time to get up, have coffee, go to work, come home, eat take-out, worry about Sheldon. Worry about what he would do with Sheldon and how they would interact now. Worry about all their moments to come.

Worry was his natural state. Enjoying things wasn't his natural state, letting things unfurl and unfold and taking advantage of moments as they come, this wasn't his natural state. Planning and rushing was his way. But he couldn't plan this and he couldn't rush Sheldon.

He heard the shower running as he stumbled off to the kitchen to pour himself some coffee. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and tried to feel cool and confident. He knew that Sheldon would emerge from the shower wrapped in a towel and that he would stay in the kitchen, not able to see that glistening wet skin, his hair darker by a shade or two and plastered to his head.

Once he heard the soft click of Sheldon's bedroom door shutting he headed to the shower, he was engulfed by the warm spray, he closed his eyes and wished something. Wished that he could kiss Sheldon again, wished that he could figure out how to forge ahead, how to get what he wanted without scaring him away.

They were both dressed for work, both had their bags slung over their shoulders. He kept glancing at Sheldon from the corner of his eye. That sleepy early morning look, his eyes half closed, the proportions of his cheekbones and the size of his lips, the way his fingers played with the strap of his bag. All of it made him feel a cramp in the center of his stomach, the longing trying to double him over.

He took his car keys from the bowl by the door and gripped them in his fist. He didn't know what to say, how to act, what to do with his hands. He wanted to stand on his tip toes and kiss him, but there was something stopping him, something always stopping him. Two kisses, that was all. What did they really mean?

He was being quiet, but Sheldon didn't seem to notice. He followed him down the stairs, gazing at the delicate exposure of his neck. He could feel the coffee sloshing around inside of him. He could feel the beginnings of hunger wrinkling the lining of his stomach, and he knew he would satisfy it with a stale blueberry muffin from the cafeteria at work.

Sheldon proposed one of their car games and he agreed but couldn't concentrate on it, he kept noticing the pale blue of Sheldon's eyes. He kept seeing the scenery flying by them and feeling the slight cool breeze coming in through the crack in the window. He kept noticing the shape of Sheldon's nails and the way his watch looked against the pale skin of his wrist.

He wanted to pull the car over, unbuckle his seatbelt and then unbuckle Sheldon's and crawl on top of him, pinning him to the bucket seat and then clamping his lips down on top of his, the kiss so long and deep that he'd start to feel like he couldn't breathe. He wanted to feel Sheldon's legs beneath him, feel the working of every muscle, feel the pull in his chest as his lungs took in oxygen.

He pulled into his spot at work, killed the engine, closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the head rest. Just one moment in the dark, the sun red against his closed eyelids. Just one silent moment when the desire wasn't trying to suffocate him. He could smell the shampoo that Sheldon used, he could smell the light cologne that he wore, even with his eyes closed he was overwhelmed by him.

"Leonard?" Sheldon's soft voice saying his name, and there was wonder in that voice and maybe worry. He opened his eyes and looked at him, saw how he was sitting up straight in the seat beside him, saw how he had unbuckled his seat belt but hadn't opened his door. He was gazing at him with a questioning look, and Leonard blinked, snapped his head up, took the keys from the ignition and held them lightly in his hand.

"Yeah, buddy?" he said.

"Are you ready to go?" There was less worry in his voice now, if it was ever there.

"Yeah,"

He opened his door and could hear Sheldon opening his. He gathered his limited momentum and got out of the car. Being in the lab would be a relief. Being in his work space where predicted outcomes occurred based on his actions would be a relief. Being out in the world, being at Chinese restaurants and in his own apartment with Sheldon where he was more and more overwhelmed was starting to exhaust him. All the molecules in the air seemed to crackle and spark around Sheldon, and he sometimes could barely see him through all of it.

He took a small deep breath and tried to calm down, tried to look forward to the predictability of his lab. He could see the pale blue sky spread over them and the green grass and trees lining this picture. He felt like he could barely look at Sheldon anymore, his beauty preventing him from seeing anything clearly.


	20. Chapter 20

It was time to go home. He walked toward the car with Sheldon in tow. He could feel his presence just a few feet behind him. He could feel the weight of his bag slung over his shoulder, felt the last rays of the sun reaching toward his face. He took the door handle in his hand, felt the warmth from the sun in the handle, held it for a moment before he yanked open the door. All he wanted to do was kiss Sheldon, touch Sheldon, tell him what he meant to him and all that he wanted.

It was like those two kisses could be forgotten, just anomalies that had nothing to do with their day to day lives. He wanted this relationship to be their day to day lives. He wanted it to be woven into the fabric of every new day, of every interaction and reaction. He wanted. He felt like he was just pure want and desire, nothing else mattered but Sheldon's soft lips, his smooth skin, his slight pulling away but eventual yielding, the complicated phrases and intonations of his speech, the ideas that he could sometimes barely follow. That was all that mattered.

They climbed all the stairs that led to their apartment. He blindly put one foot in front of the other, felt the breathlessness starting. He felt the bag slapping against his hip as he went up stair after stair. Sheldon was slightly ahead of him now, he always climbed the stairs faster, his stride was longer, he was taller, maybe that was why. He climbed, striving to keep up with him, but he was starting to feel left behind.

Raj and Howard came over for dinner, for take-out, it was Thai today. Leonard listened to the conversations around him, everyone talking but he felt oddly silent, he felt like he had nothing to contribute, not today. He was feeling overwhelmed again, sitting in the chair, eating and chewing mechanically. He left his plate half full, the thought of another bite making him sick.

Raj and Howard left as the hour grew late, and Leonard said a listless goodbye. Sheldon wouldn't pick up on his gloom, on his desire turning to hopelessness. That was both good and bad. It was nice to be brought out of your dark mood, it was nice to have someone notice and try to persuade you to come around. Sheldon couldn't do that, he could barely notice the changes in facial expressions and tones of voice that indicated someone was upset, or feeling lost, or sliding away from what they had always expected into a fun house of desire and broken wants, broken spirits, frustrations rising up like monsters, soft hands seeming to strangle you, taking all the oxygen from the air.

What did he want from him? He had told him that he liked him, too. He kissed him in the car. He responded when he kissed him first in his bedroom, he hadn't pulled away. What did he want from him? He knew Sheldon suffered from some form of a social disorder, but despite that he hadn't turned him away. He couldn't blame Sheldon for his feelings, for his fear and uncertainty. The fear and uncertainty were his to own, his to deal with. Was he exactly sure that he didn't suffer from a social disorder as well? Didn't the thought of just talking to Sheldon right now fill him with a paralyzing indecisiveness?

And now it was late. Sheldon had gone to bed. Leonard sat in the dim living room, unable to take it any longer. What would be the worst that could happen if he made another advance? Just a no, that was all. Would a no from Sheldon be worse than sitting here and suffering with every twist and turn of his tired heart? Would it be worse than feeling the sluggish blood in his ears?

He stood up and walked to Sheldon's bedroom door on shaking legs, his breath coming in uneven gasps. He knocked, thinking he might be asleep already, thinking he might be awake but wouldn't let him in, thinking a million thoughts that he couldn't grasp, that flew around his head like rabid bats, like diseased birds, that flapped and banged into his skull and the soft meat of his brain.

"Who is it?" Sheldon said, and he didn't sound tired. Leonard smiled at the question. Who did he think it was?

"It's Leonard, Sheldon. Can I come in?"

"Yes,"

Granted access, and he opened the door and realized he had hardly been in here, maybe just a dozen times before. The room was excruciatingly neat, everything stacked and organized and labelled. The room was vacuumed and dusted almost daily, and every surface capable of it gleamed.

Sheldon was in bed, wearing blue pajamas, flannel and soft looking, blue with white stripes. The top was buttoned up over a white T-shirt. He was sitting up and gazing at him, and he was sleepier than Leonard had hoped. He might have been asleep, judging by the way his eyes were only half open.

Now what? He hung in the doorway, unable to move. He looked at Sheldon looking at him, his blue eyes dilated from the dim light, not any lust or desire on his part. Leonard swallowed hard and gripped the edge of the doorway with his fingertips.

"Sheldon," he said, and he let go of the doorway and headed toward the bed and sat on the edge of it, not certain that this was acceptable to Sheldon or not. He didn't know how to be so careful of him anymore. He didn't know what was acceptable or not.

Sheldon sat up more and moved slightly away from him, watching him with curiosity and caution.

"Listen, I don't know what to do with all these feelings. I, I can't stop thinking about you. I want-I don't want to scare you or make you uncomfortable but I want...I want things to be more, I want things between us to be more somehow...I don't know how to explain this to you...but..."

Sheldon didn't seem to be making much sense out of his broken ramblings, but he was still looking at him, and he hadn't moved any further away. Leonard looked at him, gazed back at him, took in the messy hair, the sleepy eyes, the shape of his lips, the pale perfection of his skin, the angle of his teeth. He wanted to kiss him, to do more to him, and he felt the desire becoming a need, and he felt his hands slipping on the reins of it. He balled his hands into fists and would not allow himself to give in.

"Leonard," Sheldon said, waking up a little, shifting where he sat, "what are you talking about?"

Was it just his difficulty with words and expressing these type of concepts or did Sheldon really not know? Was he not on the same page, the page of having a developing relationship, the page where those two kisses would lead to more, so much more?

He was weak, he felt his hands relax, he felt himself pulled toward Sheldon, inhaling the aroma of the shampoo and soap he used, the tang of the hand sanitizer. He leaned toward him, leaned in, meaning to kiss him no matter what Sheldon felt or what he wanted at this moment. He felt relief for the first time in days when his lips touched his, when he closed his eyes and ceased to analyze everything, when he just followed these feelings along the path they lead.


	21. Chapter 21

Finally, finally, he felt like he was drinking after a monumental thirst. He kissed him, leaning over him, forcing Sheldon to lay back against the pillow. It had been maddening, sitting inches away from him at the breakfast table, on the couch, in the car, everywhere such close proximity and all the while he wanted to ravish him. Eagerly, hungrily, he kissed Sheldon, opening his mouth so slightly, flicking Sheldon's tongue with his own. He peeked, he couldn't help it, and somewhere in the animal lust that had consumed his brain he remembered that he had wanted to be careful of Sheldon. He had wanted to go slow and above all not frighten him.

He peeked, and he saw that Sheldon's eyes were lightly closed, and that he was not exactly relaxed as he lay back against the pillow. He couldn't stop kissing him, it had become like sustenance for him. He trailed his hand down Sheldon's chest to his stomach, maddened by the layers of clothes that prevented him from caressing his skin.

As his hand trailed down his clothes, looking for a way in, as he hungrily kissed him, he saw that Sheldon had squeezed his eyes shut and had pressed himself as far back into the pillow as the molecules of the pillow and mattress would allow.

He knew he had to stop, or go slower, or speak to Sheldon and see where he was with this, but he also knew that Sheldon wasn't stopping him and he didn't want to stop. He undid a few of the buttons of the pajama top he wore, he tugged at the white T-shirt that was tucked into the pajama bottoms. He put one hand under Sheldon's neck and felt the wire stiff muscles and tendons, and he saw his large eyes squeezed shut and the way his arms were rigid by his sides and he knew he had to stop.

He gasped and pulled away, little universes seeming to fly apart in his head, chaos and destruction everywhere. Had he ruined everything? Had he scared him beyond repair?

"Sorry," he said roughly, sitting up, pulling away. Sheldon didn't open his eyes at first, but he was no longer squeezing them shut. He did open them, slowly, blinking and looking at Leonard quickly and then looking away. Leonard removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes furiously with his fists.

He moved to the edge of the bed and waited to see what Sheldon might do or say. He sat up slowly and cleared his throat. Leonard waited, watching him, feeling himself still pulled toward him, wanting to ravish him still but more than that he wanted to protect him. He didn't want him to be frightened by his overwhelming desire.

Sheldon looked down at his now rumpled and unbuttoned pajama top and he slowly buttoned the undone buttons. He tucked the T-shirt back in. Leonard hung his head. He hadn't wanted that, he'd gone too fast, he'd pushed Sheldon beyond his limits. This wasn't exactly familiar territory for him but he knew it was brand new for Sheldon.

"Are you okay?" Leonard said, his voice soft, his movements non-threatening. Sheldon was looking down and to the side, his eyes slid sideways. He'd seen more than one of the autistic children his mother had been studying do that, when things became too much for them. He wanted Sheldon to look at him, to be able to look at him.

"Sheldon, look at me," he said, and in response Sheldon did look at him, jerking his sideways gaze from the floor to his face.

"I'm sorry if that was...if that was too much for you...I'm sorry,"

Silence spun out, filling the room and crashing the air molecules together and Leonard imagined he could hear the sub-audible cacophony all around them. He was lost in the light blue of Sheldon's eyes. If he was hurt by what he had done he didn't know how he would be able to stand himself.

"Are you okay?" he said, his voice soft, and he leaned over to catch his gaze.

"I'm okay," Sheldon said, and his voice was the same as always, even and nearly toneless, "I just didn't expect that,"

"It was too fast, I know, I'm sorry. Can I...can we try again?" Leonard said, losing eye contact with him as he spoke. Sheldon had turned his head and was looking down again, "Sheldon, look at me,"

Sheldon turned to him again, maintaining eye contact even though it appeared to be an effort. Leonard saw how the shade of his eyes was like a mid-afternoon sky, and he saw how his lips were slightly parted. Maybe he hadn't scared him or hurt him, he'd just done something unexpected. Sheldon didn't look scared. He could do this, they could go slow.

He leaned toward him, slowly, slowly. Now Sheldon knew what to expect. As he was closing his eyes he saw that Sheldon was closing his, and he tilted his head and kissed him, softer and less insistent, and Sheldon responded, tentatively at first and then more passionately, and he heard the rate of his breathing increase. When he went to unbutton the buttons to the pajama top again Sheldon didn't tense up, and when he leaned back against the pillow he wasn't pressed into it, his muscles relaxed this time, and Leonard felt like he was diving in, getting all the sustenance he needed.


	22. Chapter 22

He snaked his hands beneath the layer of clothes, beneath pajama top and T-shirt, felt the smooth skin of his stomach and chest, counted his ribs, he was so thin. Kissed him, breathless hungry kisses, his eyes half open, and he saw how Sheldon's eyes were lightly closed, saw how his breathing had increased until it was almost small gasps, he was as breathless as he was. Kissing, unable to stop, the feel of his tongue and teeth maddening him. Snaking his hands down, scared to stop, scared to go on. There was always this delicious fear where Sheldon was involved, the fear of going too far, of scaring him off, of causing some kind of irreparable damage. It was like playing with a glass breakable toy, an object that wasn't a toy at all and should be left on the high shelf but you just couldn't resist.

He could feel the twin prongs of his hip bones jutting beneath the soft pajama bottoms. He ran his hands over them, let his hands trail down to his thighs, slender and muscular and he could feel every sinew beneath the soft flannel.

"Sheldon," he breathed his name softly, the whispered name and the sound of their breathing the only sounds in this room, the apartment, all of Pasadena.

Sheldon moaned in response, opening his eyes for a second and letting them fall closed again. In that brief glimpse Leonard tried to figure everything out. Was this okay? Was this welcomed? How fast, and how far, could he go?

He knew that he wanted to go as far as he could, he wanted everything. He wanted orgasms and climaxes and moans turning to muffled groans. He pulled away from Sheldon for a moment, traced the line of his jaw with the tip of his index finger. Sheldon looked at him again, and Leonard saw two things in that look, two feelings or emotions. One was a timid kind of lust and the other was a fragile trust.

He tilted Sheldon's face up to his, leaned in and kissed him deeply, and the kiss trailed off, becoming more gentle. He rolled off of him and laid on the bed next to him, rolled closer to him so that they were laying side by side, and he was firmly within the circle of his warmth. That was it, that was enough for now. Instinctively he knew to go no further.

Neither of them spoke, but Leonard gazed at Sheldon and wondered what was going on in his mind. What kind of dizzying analysis was being performed on the white boards of his brain?

It was nice to just listen to his breathing, to feel the rise and fall of his chest this close to him, but his own analysis snuck its way in. It was the curse of being a scientist, it was the inability to let anything just be, to go with the flow of anything. He had to record the flow and understand its properties. Everything had to be charted and graphed.

Sheldon was falling asleep, he could tell by the change in his breathing, by the deeper inhalations. In his sleep he had let his arm fall over Leonard, and he held his hand lightly now, examining his long fingers and short nails. His nails were perfectly trimmed, never bitten to the quick like his sometimes were, the loneliness and anxiety causing him to gnaw on something like some small animal in a trap.

He wondered what they were doing, exactly. He wondered what the state of their relationship was now, exactly. He knew what it had been. It had been colleagues first, and then roommates out of convenience. He had moved in with him because the rent was relatively cheap and the apartment was the nicest he had seen. He had driven him to work because he was going there anyway. And slowly, over the first few months of living with him, he had become fascinated with his incredible mind and leaps of near blinding intuition, the way he could twist formulas to his will, the way he could see the answers to problems that had stumped the greatest minds of the last century. He'd heard about him long before he ever found the ad for the apartment, the genius who had started college at 11, who had been a visiting professor of physics in Germany at age 15, who had so many degrees and doctorates and all with highest honors, suma cum laude.

And then he had noticed, had noticed right along with the frightening brilliance all the quirks, all the OCD tendencies, all the autistic traits. And he saw how he was becoming the person to which he would turn, the one he would look to for rides to work and restaurants and the movies and the comic book store, and beyond that he saw how he was becoming the one to explain the social world to him, to help him navigate through the morass of people and their expectations, like a seeing eye dog leading its human to the store.

But where were they now? He tossed and turned, feeling Sheldon's stomach against his back. He was too tired to figure it out now, and as he slipped toward sleep a part of his mind that had Penny's voice told him to try and relax, and enjoy the ride.


	23. Chapter 23

He realized as Sheldon's alarm clock went off in the morning that this was the first time he had spent the night in here, in Sheldon's room. A small smile came to his lips as he listened to the alarm bray. His alarm clock was a radio, but Sheldon's was just an annoying buzz. He watched Sheldon wake up, rub his eyes, stretch his long arm to turn the alarm off.

Sheldon glanced at him as he stood up, and Leonard blinked. There was no tenderness in that glance, no small smile to match his own. There was just a blankness, the lack of expression he remembered so well from his mother's work with autistic children. But that wasn't true, there was a hint of an expression, slight dismay that something was different.

Sheldon left the room, closing the door with a soft click. Leonard knew what he would do. He would make the breakfast that he always made on this day of the week, and he would shower and brush his teeth and dress for work, and pack his bag and sling it over his shoulder. He stared at the closed door, trying not to feel the stunned near tears feeling he felt because Sheldon couldn't offer him the constant affection he seemed to require. He cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes before slapping his glasses to his face. He told himself that Sheldon was most likely autistic and that he had to make allowances for that. He couldn't expect...something. He wasn't quite sure how to phrase it even in his own mind. He couldn't expect the easy loving glances, the arm slung casually around his shoulder, an unexpected kiss. There was no casual and unexpected with Sheldon.

He sat up, took a deep breath, and tried to get it together. Things were fine. He would like a tad bit more affection from Sheldon but it wasn't reasonable or fair to expect it. He could be okay with that. He stood up, leaving the warmth of the bed, and stumbled out into the hall and down to the kitchen to share breakfast with Sheldon.

At work things went a little awry in the lab, and as it neared time to go Leonard realized he would be staying late tonight, very late. His first thought was Sheldon, and driving him home, and letting him down. He retreated to the corner of his lab and called Raj.

"Hello?" Raj's dignified Indian accent reassured him.

"Raj, it's Leonard. Listen, I can't get away tonight, the lab is crazy. Can you bring Sheldon home?"

He heard a sigh, or thought he did, but he willed Raj to come through for him.

"Oh, Leonard..."

"Raj, please?"

A beat of silence, and Leonard held his breath.

"Yes, of course I can," Raj said, sounding less than pleased. Leonard let out his breath.

"Thanks,"

Now that he had Sheldon taken care of he could turn his thoughts completely to his lab and the task at hand. He put goggles on over his glasses and waded back in.

He had scribbled the final calculation and shut down the last laser and he was pleased to see that it wasn't quite as late as he had feared. Everyone would still be up, Raj and Howard would still be over. He wasn't quite so late as he thought.

Walking out into the purple twilight, he smiled softly to himself in the balmy air. He found himself looking forward to seeing Sheldon, he found that just this long day at work apart he had missed him.

His legs were well conditioned from the years of walking up four flights of stairs, the broken elevator provided a better work out than he had ever gotten before. He was barely winded when he reached his apartment door. The door was unlocked and he went in. Raj and Howard looked up at him, and he scanned the room for Sheldon but didn't see him.

"Hi, guys," he said, restraining himself from immediately asking about Sheldon's whereabouts. He could be cool. And he wasn't far, he knew that. Still, he would have preferred to have seen him the second he walked in the door, like he had planned.

He got himself some left over food and sat down in front of the T.V. to eat it, keeping his ears open for Sheldon. Where was he at eight o'clock at night? Where was he when anyone who would drive him anywhere was right here in this room? But he wouldn't ask. He ate and listened to the inane conversation of Raj and Howard, but he wouldn't ask.

The seconds crept by, and the minutes, then an hour. No Sheldon. Raj and Howard were getting ready to go, they were standing and buttoning up jackets and sweaters. Howard had his helmet in his hand.

"Guys, uh, where's Sheldon?" Leonard said, hearing the naked pleading desperation in the question, and because his English was accented to Raj Raj didn't notice, but Howard did and raised his eyebrows. Leonard looked down, felt a blush starting to creep up his cheeks.

"He went over Penny's," Howard said, a slight smile tugging at his lips, and his eyes seemed to ask what it was to him.

"Oh," Leonard said, striving for a casualness in his voice and tone and failing miserably. Oh.

Howard and Raj left, and the seconds and minutes continued to creep by, and Leonard sat in the living room ignoring the T.V. and focusing on the clock. What was he doing there? Had Penny asked him to fix something on her computer or printer or any other technical device? Or had he gone there seeking her advice on the whole situation they found themselves in? Is it somehow too much for him?


	24. Chapter 24

Leonard shifted his weight on the couch, barely able to comprehend the T.V. show parading before his eyes, the strings of commercials hawking everything from car insurance to acne cream. He shifted, he looked at the closed door of his apartment, knowing that at any moment Sheldon could just walk right through it. He had to stop, he knew he had to stop. He felt himself becoming controlling, wanting to hold on to Sheldon and control his every move. Was this some consequence of his early childhood and the trust that was never established between himself and his mother? Was he going to be as Freudian as that?

He was at Penny's and that was fine. Sheldon was friends with Penny, just as he was. He could go over there and it didn't have to mean anything. He wished he could shut his mind down for one moment. Did non-geniuses have this trouble, this over analyzing of every situation?

Shifting on the couch, flipping through the channels, and now he found himself wishing for both things at once, or neither. He didn't want Sheldon to be talking to Penny about him, bringing up concerns, telling her that he wasn't comfortable with their new level of intimacy. But he did want that, he wanted this to be important to Sheldon, important enough to seek Penny's advice. If he wasn't worrying about it did that mean it didn't matter to him?

He took a deep breath and told himself to just wait for Sheldon to return, that things were fine, that he had to have some faith at some point. He flipped to the science channel and tried to immerse himself in an old episode of _Star Trek._

An hour later, his eyes slipping closed, the T.V. voices becoming a soothing babble, the door opened and Sheldon came in. Leonard sat up, rubbed his eyes, blinked at him. He was so good looking, his large blue eyes focused on the ground, the T-shirts clinging to his thin frame.

"Hey," he said, watching him cross the apartment and go to the refrigerator and take out a bottle of water.

"Hi," Sheldon said, and Leonard felt his stomach drop a little at the stretched out way Sheldon said it, he felt like he was on a roller coaster back in New Jersey, the Atlantic Ocean crashing the surf somewhere in the background.

"Where were you?" Leonard said, trying to sound casual and not demanding, but it didn't really matter. Sheldon heard only the words, tones of voice were difficult at best for him.

"I was at Penny's," he said, drinking his water, and Leonard watched his adam's apple bob up and down as he drank.

"Why?" Leonard said, and wished he had bit his tongue, wished he didn't have to pry, wished he could be cool and collected instead of wet and clingy, like some terrified cat just let in after thunder and blinding sheets of rain.

"She made me spaghetti with the hot dogs cut up in it, and we talked about you,"

He said it without any kind of inflection, he answered that question with complete honesty like he answered all questions. It was what he loved and feared about him. So he had gone over there to seek her advice? But maybe not. Sheldon said they talked about him, but who brought it up? Maybe Penny brought it up. Maybe it was no big deal. But he couldn't question him further. If it was a big deal he wasn't quite ready to know.

"It's late," Sheldon informed him, putting the empty water bottle into the recycle bin, "I'm going to bed,"

Left blinking on the couch, alone, no answers, he licked his lips and reviewed his options. It was late but not that late. Penny worked the evening shifts at The Cheesecake Factory, so she always stayed up late. He could go over there and find out what was what, what Sheldon had said and what Sheldon was thinking.

Or he could go to bed and not be ridiculous, and have faith that everything was fine. Everything was fine. It was a brand new relationship, it was delicate, it had its tricky moments, but things were going along just fine. Why couldn't he trust in that? Or he could go to Sheldon's room just as he would be falling asleep, and he could lean over and kiss him softly on the lips and on the side of his neck, and he could feel that pulsing vein beneath his lips, and he could trail his fingers down Sheldon's chest to his stomach to the edge of his pajama pants.

Leonard sat on the couch, the three options spread out before him. He glanced at the clock. It wasn't that late. He glanced down the hall toward their bedrooms. He swallowed hard.

He stood up, feeling out of control of his body, of his mind, of his impulses, and he didn't know where his feet might carry him. He flipped off the T.V. and walked quietly to the door, across the hall, and found himself knocking softly at Penny's door.


	25. Chapter 25

"Oh, Leonard, hi," Penny said, opening the door. She was in her pink robe, her hair piled on top of her head in a loose bun.

"Hi, can I come in? Is it too late?" he said, shifting from foot to foot.

"No, it's fine, come in," she said, turning from him and walking into the apartment. He followed her.

"What's up?" she said, sitting on the couch, tucking her legs under her. He stood near her couch, still shifting, licking his lips.

"Look, I know I shouldn't even be asking you, but when Sheldon was here...what happened?"

"What happened? Nothing. We ate spaghetti, you know he loves it with those little hot dogs in it, I don't really like it that way, but it makes him so happy so I always just put them in-"

"Penny. I'm not talking about the spaghetti. I mean, did he, did you two, uh, talk about me?"

He felt himself having a hard time breathing waiting for her to tell him what Sheldon said, if she even would. Penny wouldn't break his confidence if he had asked her not to mention it to him.

She gazed at him, her green blue eyes wavering like water, like the ocean on a sunny day, her lips pursed into a little bow.

"Leonard," she said, patting the space next to her on the couch, and he sat there.

"Leonard, I think you have to stop being afraid of talking to Sheldon about this stuff. He won't bite you, he really won't. He'll just tell you the truth,"

"That's kind of what I'm afraid of,"

"Why?" she said, pulling her robe down her legs.

"Because Sheldon doesn't communicate like everyone else, he never tells you what he thinks you want to hear. I don't think he can even fathom that. It's all truth or lies with him, it's all so stark. I guess I'm just afraid of hearing things I don't want to hear,"

She laughed at him, but gently, little bubbles of laughter that burst before they could hurt him.

"He asked me not to tell you...so you'll have to go and ask him yourself," she said, her gaze trying to pierce him. He stood up, knowing that Sheldon was in bed and probably asleep already, knowing that he felt afraid to wake him. He took several steps toward her door and then he turned back to her.

"Is it, can you tell me if it's bad?" he said, and the question was so naked and pleading that he nearly cringed.

"Leonard, just go talk to Sheldon. You can do it, I promise you,"

He left and went back to his apartment and felt all the caring suddenly leave him. Sheldon was so beautiful, so beautiful. He wanted to have him, to own him, to devour him. He wanted a relationship. But if it wasn't going to work he had to know. If it was too much for Sheldon to take he had to know. He'd risk waking him, risk hearing a truth he couldn't take, risk being brought to his psychic knees. He'd risk it all for the truth. Like Sheldon he prized the truth. He liked things being sugar coated and cushioned, hearing the harsh things told in lovely euphemisms, but there came the time when only the truth would do.

He strode across the apartment and down the tiny hall that lead past the bathroom and to their bedrooms. He knocked on Sheldon's door, the knock firm, decisive. He opened the door before he was granted permission, because he would wake him if necessary. He was tired of feeling like he was crawling out of his own skin, the desire prickling every nerve ending.

Sheldon slept, his breathing slow and even. He gazed at him, feeling a warmth spreading through his cells. Sheldon. Couldn't things be easier than this? Couldn't his brain leave him alone for one single solitary second? But he knew it couldn't. He knew it would drive him insane wondering what he had told Penny, or asked her.

"Sheldon," he said, shaking him gently. Sheldon's eyes fluttered open and he looked at him with the complete lack of recognition that characterized his waking. Sheldon always woke up almost completely disoriented.

"Sheldon, it's me, Leonard," he said, and watched the knowledge of the time and place slowly fill his eyes.

"Leonard?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes, blinking, trying to see the clock.

"I know it's late, I'm sorry, but I think we have to talk,"

"Now?" Sheldon said, sitting up.

"Yes, now," Leonard sat on the edge of the bed, and Sheldon moved over to give him more room.

He cleared his throat, determined to lay it all on the line.

"Listen, I'm a mess. It's not you, well, not your fault, really. It's me. It's the way I worry about everything and second guess everything and wonder what everything means, you know how each action has an equal and opposite reaction? It's like I'm always trying to calculate everything involving us and it's not working. Not that I don't think this is working, but I think all my anxiety and uncertainty isn't working. I don't want to rush you, or push you, but I don't ever know what to do. Does this make any sense?"

Sheldon was listening, squinting his eyes a little in the dim light, and he nodded.

"I realized that I could just ask you and you'd tell me how things are. I can't tell what you're thinking or how you're feeling because of your lack of...I don't know. I can't really tell because you don't seem to show your emotions, which isn't a bad thing, it just makes it tricky for me to know where we are. So, where are we?"

Sheldon looked at him, and now he could see the slight puzzlement in his eyes.

"We're in my bedroom, but I sense you are asking a question about our relationship. But I don't know what you're asking. What do you want to know?"

Leonard felt something in his chest loosen just a bit by what Sheldon had said. Why? Was it because he characterized what they had as a relationship?

"I want to know how you feel about things, if I'm pushing you too far in any way. I want to know if...I don't know..." Was he actually thinking about asking Sheldon if he loved him? He didn't think he could ask that. He was asking enough.

"How I feel? Oh. I feel comfortable with you, I already felt that in the context of our friendship, and now that we have a different sort of relationship I still feel this comfort but now it is mingled with an excitement. I like kissing you, I like when you do more than that, and I also like how I'm not entirely certain about it, because it causes adrenaline to be released and also dopamine to attach to pleasure receptors in my brain, so I have felt more pleasure than I ever have, perhaps,"

All of this said with almost no expression, so analytical. Did he love him, or did he think love was a result of chemicals that were released in his brain? Maybe time would tell. Whatever he told Penny couldn't have been that bad, and he decided he would let it stay between them. Sheldon had told him all he needed to know for now, and he smiled and leaned in toward him, kissing him right on the lips, trailing his hand down his chest to his stomach and to the waistband of his pajama pants. He hoped to release some more adrenaline and dopamine in that exquisite brain of his.


	26. Chapter 26

Leonard snaked his hand down lower than he had before, feeling the soft flannel of the inside of Sheldon's pajamas, brushing his fingertips along the outside of his underwear. He licked his lips, listening to the deepening of Sheldon's breathing. He couldn't believe how much he desired him, how much every cell in his body was drawn toward him. He couldn't believe how hard this was at the same time, how every action was fraught with a myriad of doubts, doubts flying and shrieking in every direction.

For every action there was an equal pulling away. He pulled his hand up, trailed it back up his stomach and chest. He closed his eyes and kissed him again, feeling the softness of his tongue, the hardness of his teeth, feeling that Sheldon was getting more comfortable with kissing, less tentative. There was always a pulling away, and was it because of what Sheldon could take or what he could take? Maybe it wasn't only Sheldon who was afraid, maybe it was also him.

That had to be okay, too. Beyond a few drunken nights at bars and dorms in college, stolen kisses with frat boys in coat closets, beyond a few awkward dates with Joyce Kim, he had no relationship experience to speak of. Only this. Only kissing Sheldon and daring himself to do more. Only gazing across the butcher's block at his beauty every morning. Only dissolving in his eyes, just to somehow reform again to feel the desire crinkling up every bit of exposed skin.

He brushed the short hair off of Sheldon's forehead, lightly ran his fingertips along the line of his jaw. Sheldon looked at him sleepily, his eyes half closed. Leonard smiled a half smile at him, and even this close up the edges of things were blurry without his glasses. Leonard felt the unfamiliar warmth of something close to happiness spreading from his stomach to his limbs, he felt the electricity of where his skin touched Sheldon's.

It was getting later, they both had work tomorrow. Leonard let his eyes slip shut, the numbers on the alarm clock were blurry and indecipherable anyway. He brushed Sheldon's lips with his, a grazing kiss, and then he fell asleep in his arms.

He woke up a second before the alarm was going to go off, propped himself up on one elbow and stared at his sleeping roommate. Roommate, and now what? Boyfriend? He couldn't help smiling at that, it sounded so young and silly. Boyfriend. But the warm feeling from last night was still there, still flowing through his body along with his blood.

The warm happy feeling filled him all day, as he nibbled on his toast in the morning, as he steered the car through the sun drenched streets of Pasadena on their way to work, as he kissed Sheldon's cheek before they got out of the car. It was there all day, sleeping like a purring cat in his stomach.

That night, take-out with Raj and Howard, Leonard could feel the dopey smile on his face but he couldn't help it. Something had loosened in his chest about this relationship, somehow the doubts had dissolved just a bit, like cotton candy melting on your tongue.

He sat back in his chair, letting the sounds of the T.V. voices drift by him, watching as Sheldon methodically picked up the trash from the coffee table. He couldn't believe that he felt peaceful, he didn't feel the uncertainty crawling through his mind like little maggots, wriggling and trying to eat.

"Oh, guys, I forgot some of my papers at the university," Raj said, standing up, jiggling his keys, "I'll be right back,"

Sheldon was running the silverware under the faucet and he glanced up, seeing Raj getting ready to leave.

"Raj, I need to return the pillow cases that went with the Star Wars sheets, can I come with you?"

"Yes, I guess so,"

Leonard watched as Sheldon went to his room, got the pillow cases, got his wind breaker from the hall closet, and half waved to him and Howard as he followed Raj out the door and into the hall. Once the door to their apartment clicked shut and the sound of their footsteps on the stairs became fainter, Howard turned to him.

"Okay, what's up with you and C3PO?"

He blinked at Howard, taking in his small, gray colored eyes, slightly unruly Beatles mop top, his pseudo seventies nerd attire. Howard's eyes glittered with their sharp intelligence. He knew, of course he knew. Howard, unlike Sheldon, could read every subtle nuance of body language and facial expression, every degree of change in the inflection of voices.

"What do you mean?" Leonard said, wondering now what this meant. He loved Sheldon. That was a fact. He desired him and admired him and he was only happy when he was near him, and he wanted this fledgling relationship to last for years, for decades, perhaps for the rest of his life. Wouldn't Raj and Howard have to know at some point?


	27. Chapter 27

Leonard looked at Howard for a long moment, unsure of what to do, unsure of how to lie convincingly and uncertain if a lie was appropriate. What had given them away? For months he had been attentive to Sheldon, that hadn't changed. What had changed? It was just today, just the first loosening of the coiled up worry and desire, today was the first day he felt like he could breathe. That had to be what Howard noticed. He cleared his throat.

"What do you mean?" he said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Oh, come on. You know what I mean," Howard said, his head down, his eyes peering up at him knowingly.

So Howard knew, Howard could see the naked desire so obvious in his eyes. But he didn't feel ready to expose everything right now, and it wasn't just because Sheldon was another guy. That hardly mattered. It was because it was between them right now, and he didn't know how to admit it. He thought it might be better left to Sheldon to just come out with it in his oblivious and honest way, and there'd be some widening of the eyes and that would be that.

"Nothing," Leonard said, feeling bad almost the moment it left his lips. Nothing. That was the most extreme lie he could have told, and he felt like he was betraying Sheldon by saying it. He hung his head as Howard gave him an incredulous look.

"I can ask him, you know. You know he's incapable of lying on the spot,"

Leonard licked his lips, wondering why this had to be so hard on so many levels. If one of them was a girl wouldn't this be easier? It wasn't so black and white as that, he didn't like Sheldon because he was male, he just happened to be male. Hadn't he read somewhere that the heart wants what it wants? His heart wanted Sheldon.

"Howard, just let it go, okay?"

"Okay,"

Fidgeting on the couch, he felt like running to Penny, because Penny knew and accepted it all, and he felt some underlying criticism emanating from Howard in waves. Maybe it was because Howard and Sheldon didn't really get along. He'd always noticed that. Sheldon's quirks and the difficulties that went along with his high functioning autism were harder for Howard to take than for the rest of them. He saw the cruelty in how Howard frequently dealt with Sheldon, everyone saw it except, perhaps, Sheldon himself. A lot of Howard's interactions with Sheldon were sarcastic, and Sheldon couldn't notice that.

It was getting him mad, thinking of it. He felt protective of Sheldon, and angered that Howard was questioning things with his knowing looks. He felt angry about every sarcastic slight Howard had ever leveled in Sheldon's direction.

He was about to just admit it, to put it out there and dare Howard to say anything, but he heard the rattle of the door handle and Raj came in, followed by Sheldon. He felt that rush seeing him, he felt his breathing quicken at the sight of Sheldon looking down, tossing his keys into the bowl, walking past them to hang his jacket in the hall closet. He followed Sheldon with his eyes, and then he caught a glimpse of Howard watching him. Howard smiled and widened his eyes briefly, then he turned to Raj and started talking about NASA and his various space experiments.

They stayed awhile, and Leonard let the conversations flow around him, not joining in much. No one except Howard seemed to notice. Penny came over for some dinner after her shift, still dressed in her uniform. Leonard focused on the mustard and ketchup stains on her apron and the places where she had rubbed her grease stained hands, the finger prints trailing away like bloody handprints in a horror movie. Penny's presence made Raj fall silent, and he looked around the room like he still had things to say.

He listened to Sheldon and Penny talk to each other, and he knew that Sheldon made an effort to make what he was saying intelligible to Penny, but he knew most of it was still too technical or strewn with references to higher physics, mathematics, and literature that she just didn't know or couldn't understand. And he saw how she indulged him when he talked too much about trains or black holes or the possibility of time travel, and how she kept sarcasm to a minimum or told him outright she was being sarcastic. He felt a warm spot in his heart for Penny because she was so kind and considerate with Sheldon.

He leaned back on the couch, sandwiched between Sheldon and Howard, and he wanted to lean against Sheldon and rest his head on his shoulder, casually take his hand in his and trace the veins that were visible there, and he wanted to lean into his space and inhale the aroma of shampoo and soap and hand sanitizer and lavender fabric softer. He couldn't wait for the moment when all their friends would leave and the lights in the apartment could dim and the T.V. babble would be the only noise except for their breathing, and he could become hypnotized by the rise and fall of Sheldon's chest.

He let his eyes slip shut, glancing at the clock. Soon, soon they would all go. Wasn't he lucky that he already lived with the person he was determined to spend the rest of his life with, the person who occupied every waking thought? Lucky was never an adjective he used in association with himself, but he had to admit that it fit.

Penny stood up, her hair coming out of the bun tendril by tendril, little blond coils wrapping themselves around her delicate features.

"Bye, guys, I've got a date tonight," she said and bounced out. The food was congealing in the take out boxes on the coffee table, and Raj and Sheldon had started to pick them up and throw them away.

Howard stood and adjusted his skinny jeans.

"I've got to get going, too. I'm sure you and Sheldon will have fun when we're gone," he said, making Raj look at him with a dazed, puzzled look. Leonard glared at him.

"I'm sure we will," he said, watching as Raj and Howard shrugged into their light weight jackets.

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out," he said to Howard.

Finally, everyone was gone. The silence gathered after them, the molecules of the air in the apartment finally began to calm down. Sheldon was in the kitchen, scraping plates and rinsing them for the dish washer. Leonard licked his lips, feeling his heartbeat rattling his chest. He went over to him, stood behind him and wrapped his arms around him. He was so skinny, he could feel every delicate bone beneath his arms and against his body.

"Hi," he whispered, and he felt the tenseness that was always Sheldon's first reaction to being touched begin to melt away.

"Hi," he whispered back.


	28. Chapter 28

Sheldon turned around while still in Leonard's arms, and Leonard was facing his chest. Leonard laid his head against it and could feel and hear his heartbeat. Sheldon. In this moment he didn't care what Howard thought. This was all he wanted.

Leonard tilted his head up to him, his eyes half closed, all he could see was Sheldon. The slant of his jaw, the shape of his lips, the edge of his nose, those eyes looking down at him, so blue. Crystal clear blue, the slightest yellow hue around the pupils. He licked his lips, and Leonard saw the uncertainty in his downward gaze. Didn't he know he should kiss me now, Leonard thought. Didn't he know if he tilted his head down just so we could connect right now? He felt himself yearning toward him, reaching out with every fiber, every sinew of every cell. His mind called out for him, and he could feel the heat emanating from his body.

"Sheldon," he said, just barely breathing his name. He'd have to come out and tell Sheldon to kiss him, but that was okay. He could lead him.

"Kiss me now," Leonard said, and Sheldon nodded, his nearly formal nod, and Leonard had to smile. He tilted his head down and their lips connected, and Leonard felt a slight tingle spread from his lips to everywhere. His eyes closed like they were on a string, like he was just a puppet controlled by somebody else. That was okay, too. He was tired of thinking and rethinking everything. The over analysis that he was prone to was making him weary. Sometimes he liked to just be, to just do, to just be in the moment and not worry about everything. It was brand new for him, just being, just going with a flow. Penny lived her life like that, and he knew it and envied it.

He broke the kiss and looked at Sheldon, his eyes half closed, his lips parted slightly, his breathing quick and shallow. Leonard tugged on the waistband of his pants, getting him to follow him to one of the bedrooms. He lead him past the bathroom, past his room, and down to his.

A little fear and a little over analysis tried to creep in as Leonard gently pushed him toward the bed. He felt like he was on this precarious knife's edge. How far would be too far? He didn't look afraid at all. He looked...he didn't know. Receptive? And he wouldn't break him, even if he pushed past some boundaries that he had, even if he went too far too fast for him.

"Sheldon..." Leonard said, laying on top of him, feeling him shift his weight underneath him. He wanted to tell him he loved him but bit his tongue on the words. Not yet, not yet. He traced along the line of Sheldon's jaw with his fingertip, felt him shiver. He closed his eyes and leaned in for another kiss, deeper this time, consuming, devouring. Leonard was thinking of how to get him out of those clothes and started to tug on them as they kissed, tugging blindly, trying to find a way into and beneath those layers of T-shirts, trying to undo the button of his pants, slipping the zipper down slowly, tooth by tooth.

* * *

><p>Sleeping afterward, Sheldon was asleep, Leonard wasn't. He gazed at his sleep messy hair, slight disarray that made him look even sexier. He kissed Sheldon's cheek, so pale and so soft, and he moaned and stirred but didn't wake. Leonard smiled. He didn't know what his issue was with Walowitz knowing all this, but it had something to do with feeling protective of Sheldon. Feeling protective of himself, his feelings and innermost desires. These were too precious to just expose to Howard and his potential ridicule.<p>

They'd find out soon enough, Leonard knew. He wouldn't worry about it now. He took Sheldon's hand in his and traced the half moons on his nails. In his sleep Sheldon pulled his hand away, curled it up against his chest.


	29. Chapter 29

Leonard watched Sheldon get up when the alarm brayed, watched him rub his eyes and blink, watched as he slipped into his robe and slippers. He watched him not even glance back as he left the room to go about his unalterable morning routine. It was okay. He didn't need little backwards glances, little touches on his arms and shoulders, little indications that he was more than furniture in this room.

He sat up, propping himself up with one elbow, and slapped his glasses onto his face. It was almost as though he could understand Sheldon and his autistic disorder on an intellectual level only. On the more visceral emotional level he couldn't seem to understand it at all. Why didn't Sheldon give him the emotional reassurances he needed? Why did he have to start questioning everything all over again? He shook his head, determined not to do this to himself. That was how Sheldon was. He didn't do those things because he didn't, it didn't mean things weren't as important to him, it didn't mean...anything.

He stood up and shrugged into his robe, tying the terry cloth belt tightly around his waist. He stumbled out to the kitchen, wiping his glasses with a tissue. On his side of the butcher block he saw his pancakes neatly stacked and dressed in a little bit of butter and a lot of syrup, just how he liked them. His coffee cup was next to the pancake plate, steaming, two creams and two sugars. He looked up at Sheldon, who was still arranging his own plate.

"Good morning, Leonard," he said, and smiled slightly.

"Morning," Leonard said, sliding onto the stool and picking up his fork. Through the years Sheldon knew that he preferred this particular fork for whatever reason, he himself wasn't even sure. Maybe it was the weight of it, the straightness of the tines. When Sheldon made him something to eat he would always give him this fork. He took a bite, his eyes almost filling with tears. He saw something now. This was how Sheldon showed him affection. This breakfast, as perfect and to his preferences as Sheldon could get it, that was his little touch on the arm, his backward glance.

Driving to work, feeling his equilibrium returned to him, he smiled, glancing at Sheldon from time to time. He couldn't get over his beauty, his pale perfect skin and blue eyes. He couldn't get over his sweet revelation this morning. He felt strangely energized. He pulled smoothly into his parking spot and killed the engine, and he laid his hand on Sheldon's arm before he could so much as unbuckle his seatbelt.

Sheldon looked at him questioningly, glancing from his face to his hand on his arm.

"Sheldon, listen..." he started, but he didn't know where to go with it, how to explain anything he was thinking. He'd always had trouble with that. There were concepts and diagrams in his head that were beyond words.

"Have a good day at work," he said, and leaned in toward him, wanting to kiss him, wanting to touch him one last time before they parted for the workday. He closed his eyes as he felt Sheldon's lips against his, as he felt his tongue flicking against his. Sheldon pulled away first, like he usually did. Leonard opened his eyes and gazed at him, at his dilated pupils and quick and shallow breathing.

It was an office day for Leonard, a day filled with tabulating results from recent experiments. Everything faded to background noise as he focused in on certain puzzling results. He was sure the knocking at his office door had gone on for quite some time before it pierced through his concentration.

"Yeah! Come in!" The door opened and Howard stood there, smiling wickedly at him in his skinny jeans and dickie under a button up flannel shirt. Why did he feel the sinking feeling in his stomach?

"Leonard," he said, falling into one of the chairs by his desk.

"Howard, I'm busy," he said, trying to get back into the comfortable world of his numbers, his charts, his results. It was all lost to him now.

"I know. We're all busy. But you need to fess up. What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. You and Sheldon. C'mon, buddy, tell me," He watched the way Howard's skinny legs bounced up and down as he sat there.

"What?" He looked up at him with real irritation. Howard leaned forward, his hands on his knees.

"I'm not stupid, you know. I know something is going on. You've got to tell me,"

"Nothing is...nothing is going on. I don't have to tell you anything," Leonard glared at him. He wouldn't tell him. He wouldn't open himself up to any of Howard's ridicule.

"Fine. Have it your way," he said, standing up. Leonard watched him leave, and he knew it wasn't over. Howard would find out, one way or another. When he heard the door click softly behind him he put his head down on his desk, feeling almost guilty that he was denying things, betraying Sheldon in some way. Why couldn't he just tell him, stand up for himself and Sheldon? What was wrong with him?


	30. Chapter 30

Howard left, leaving his office with his jaunty little walk. Leonard watched him go, knowing that he knew about him and Sheldon. He knew that he was in love with him, even if he didn't know any of what was going on. What was so wrong with that? Was it because Sheldon wasn't a girl? If he was in a relationship with a girl wouldn't everybody know? Did he have hang ups, too, despite thinking he was so modern and above all that? Or was it that he knew how Raj and Howard saw Sheldon? They saw all the OCD traits, the incessant hand washing and the constant cleaning of the apartment, cleaning that involved Q-tips into the deepest crevices. They saw the lack of understanding of humor and sarcasm, they saw his inability to divine anything from facial expressions and tones of voice. They saw all the corrections of grammar and the quoting of bizarre historical facts, they saw his lack of expression, his flat tone of voice, his tendency to dominate conversations.

There were things they didn't see. They didn't see his careless kindness, the way he would give Penny enormous amounts of money, the way he followed whatever rules those around him had. He would never knock on Penny's door before 11 in the morning. He would never make food with the various things that he, Leonard, was unable to eat. They didn't see his beauty, the incredible pale blue of his eyes, the way his lips came together, the off center deliciousness of his teeth.

He shook his head, putting all his papers away, turning off his computer. It was time to go. The ride home with Sheldon was one of the things he looked forward to everyday. He liked that time together, he liked the way the light looked, a dark yellow, and the way everything looked dusty through the windshield. He could feel the excitement in his chest and his stomach as he walked the distance from his office to Sheldon's.

Sheldon's office door was open when he got there and he peeked in. Sheldon was at his desk on the phone, and he was arguing with someone about one of the grants he was proposing. Even when he was impatiently listening he could see the irritation in his eyes. That was something else he liked about Sheldon, although it could rub most people the wrong way. He always thought that he was right. Leonard wished he could think that about himself for one glorious second.

"Alright, yes, we'll discuss this later," Sheldon said, and then he glanced up and saw Leonard in the doorway. His expression didn't change, he was still annoyed with whoever was on the phone. Leonard crept into the room as Sheldon hung up the phone.

"Ready?" Leonard said, looking at the intricate equations that covered every inch of the whiteboards that were in his office.

"Yes," Sheldon said, still not smiling at him, still looking irritated, his eyebrows knitted in consternation. Sheldon never left work at work. This conversation would probably make him frown all night, unless he could somehow distract him from it. He watched him neaten up his already painfully neat desk, he watched him stand up, pulling himself to his full height which was towering over him. He moved in his methodical way to retrieve his jacket from the closet and he shrugged into it, slipped his bag over one shoulder and across his chest.

He wanted to kiss him right now but this mood Sheldon was in wasn't conducive to it. He was terrified of trying to kiss him and having him pull away, so he always chose his moments very carefully. This wasn't one of them. But he could always look at him, gazing up at how tall he was, gazing into his large blue eyes.

As they walked across the campus to his car Leonard could see how irritable Sheldon was, he saw it in the way his fingers worked ceaselessly around the strap of his bag. He saw it in the way he looked down and to the side, his eyes slid to the corners just like one of the autistic kids in his mom's study used to do when he was irritated.

Autism. When Leonard felt like Sheldon's traits of it were cranked up to high volume he always worried. He worried about his state of mind because he knew these behaviors were a regression in a way, a way he dealt with upsetting situations. It was the grant proposal conversation, that was all it was. That was causing him to be silent and to have that expression, that was causing him to stim with his fingers on the strap of his bag. But it also made him worry in another way. When his mom was doing her brain imaging studies of kids with autism and kids without it, he always remembered that the non-autistic kids' brain scans lit up in certain areas when other people were around, and the autistic kids' brain scans didn't. He knew what it meant, it had to do with attention, it had to do with what was important to you on the neuronal level.

He looked at Sheldon now as they crossed the parking lot, and he was deeply inside of himself, unreachable. His fingers had an almost elegant rhythm as they moved up and down that piece of material. When he looked at him, or thought of him, what part of his brain would light up? Leonard shook his head, trying to remember when Penny said he wasn't a case in a textbook, but it was hard. He was a scientist and things fit into boxes. How could he get them out of this box?

"Sheldon," he said, wanting to draw him out of himself, wanting to connect with him, wanting to feel the elation he had felt when he saw his pancakes made to perfection and his favorite fork next to them.

"Yes?" Sheldon said, not looking at him, still moving his fingers, walking in his stiff way, shoulders almost hunched up, his back perfectly straight.

"Are you okay?" Leonard said, pleading in his head for Sheldon to look at him, just one brief glance. Sheldon licked his lips and clutched the strap of his bag, perhaps noticing the stimming behavior. He looked at Leonard, and Leonard could see how hard it was for him to look at him right now, how hard it was for him to stray from his comforting behaviors.

The look was brief, the clutching of the bag strap was brief. He looked down and away again, he moved his fingers to that internal soothing rhythm. Leonard shook his head, seeing the kids in his mom's study from when he was a kid himself, seeing the blank expressions and the way they would flap their hands or move their fingers in front of their eyes, the way they would focus on dust motes or flick little bits of lint into the air just to watch them fall.

"Leonard, I am not okay. It looks like I'm not going to get this grant, and there is no reason for that. My research is solid in this area, it's groundbreaking, and without the grant I don't see how I can push forward and make the tangible breakthroughs that are needed at this particular juncture..."

His speech, though delivered with little inflection, comforted Leonard a bit. It was work, it was physics, and he understood that. He'd been disappointed by grants that were blocked by bureaucracy and aggravating little details, too.

"Man, that sucks," Leonard said, trying to bring Sheldon back to here and now, back to him.

"Yes, it does," Sheldon said, looking at him again, smiling a little. Maybe he would let this go for now.

"It does," Leonard said, and reached out for his hand, and Sheldon didn't protest as he entwined his fingers with his and squeezed lightly. They reached the car and got in, and it was hot from sitting out in the California sun, and Leonard started the car and turned the air conditioning on, even though all it did was blow out hot air.


End file.
